However, such an independent young woman as Jessamy would not consent to suffer a great deal at the hands of a step-father. She stayed on with the family for her mother's sake, but she had her own neat living room and bedroom and went her own way entirely. It must end someday. Old Adam Selden, though hard and tough as a time-battered oak, could not live for ever. Her mother would not divorce him. So Jessamy stayed and waited, and rode over the hills alone, unafraid and independent.
She was helping her mother to get supper in the commodious kitchen, with its black log walls and immense stone fireplace, which room served as dining room and living room as well, when Adam Selden, Bolar, and Moffat rode in from the trail and corraled their horses. Supper was ready as the three clanked to the house in spurs and chaps, and washed noisily in basins under a gigantic liveoak at the cabin door. Then Jessamy took Oliver Drew's letter from her bosom and propped it against old Adam's coffee cup.
Selden's bushy brows came down as he scraped his chair to the table. Mail for any Selden was an unusual occurrence.
"What's this here?" Adam's thick fingers held the envelope before his eyes, and the beetling grey brows strained lower.
"Mail," indifferently answered Jessamy, setting a pan of steaming biscuits, covered with a spotless cloth, on the table.
"It's generally customary to open a letter and read who it is from," said Jessamy lightly. "In this instance, however, you will find a notation on the flap of the envelope that reads: 'From Oliver Drew, Halfmoon Flat, California.'"
"Huh!" Selden raised his shaggy head and bent a condemnatory glance on the girl.
"It is postmarked Halfmoon Flat," said Jessamy, taking her seat beside Bolar, who, indifferent to his father's difficulties, had already consumed three fluffy biscuits spread with butter and wild honey.
"Ye got her out o' the office, then?" The cold blue eyes were challenging.
"Oh, certainly, certainly!" Jessamy chirruped impatiently. "One might imagine you'd never received a letter before."
Adam fingered it thoughtfully. "Yes," he said deliberatingly at last, reverting to his customary drawl, "I got letters before now. But I was just wonderin' if this Drew fella give thisun to you to give to me."