Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/59

Rh Her guest, who rose to meet the newcomer, looked as if he must be a changeling in the blooming and lusty brood of Jerry McCormick. While his sisters were women of that richness of coloring and contour peculiar to California, Tod was not five feet and a half high, and was thin, meager, sallow-skinned, and weak-eyed. A thatch of lifeless hair covered his narrow head, and a small and sickly mustache had been coaxed into existence on his upper lip. He was in reality twenty-seven years old, but he looked hardly twenty. Even his clothes, of the most fashionable make and texture, could not impart to him an air of elegance or style. Their very splendor seemed to heighten his insignificance.

"Howdy, Gault," he said, his small and weazened countenance lightened by a fleeting and evidently perfunctory smile. "You 're early, but I 'm earlier."

"I came to see my brother," said the older man, rather stiffly, for though he knew Tod to be good-natured and harmless, he did not like him.

"What a pity!" said Letitia. "Maud and Mortimer are both out. They 're lunching at the Murrays'. But they 'll be back soon now. Won't you sit here with us?"

Though Tod's annoyance at this proposition did not find vent in words, it was plain to be