Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/454

  the colonel. "That there is the finest, sweetest, truest girl that walks this sphere," he said, pointing at Kate's photograph, "and the other, I guess you know all about her."

"Yes, I know about her," said Ranald, looking at the photograph; "it is to her I owe everything I have that is any good. And Colonel," he added, with an unusual burst of confidence, "when my life was broken off short, that woman put me in the way of getting hold of it again."

"Well, they both think a pile of you," was the colonel's reply.

"Yes, I think they do," said Ranald. "They are not the kind to forget a man when he is out of sight, and it is worth traveling two thousand miles to see them again."

"Ain't it queer, now, how the world is run?" said the colonel. "There's two women, now, the very best; one has been buried all her life in a little hole in the woods, and the other is giving herself to a fellow that ain't fit to carry her boots."

"What!" said Ranald, sharply, "Kate?"

"Yes, they say she is going to throw herself away on young St. Clair. He is all right, I suppose, but he ain't fit for her." Ranald suddenly stooped over his valise and began pulling out his things.

"I didn't hear of that," he said.

"I did," said the colonel; "you see he is always there, and acting as if he owned her. He stuck to her for a long time, and I guess she got tired holding out."