Clover

of the Denver station with her two companions. There they stood, Phil on one side tired and drooping, Mrs. Watson on the other blinking anxiously about, both evidently depending on

returned to her cheeks, and s

re and make yourselves comfortable, I will find out about the tr

obedience, doubtless, to some law understood by themselves, but which looked to the uninitiated like the direst confusion. Inside the station the scene was equally confused. Travellers just a

ket-agent whose eye she had caught. He was at liberty at the moment, and his answers to her inquiries, though brief, were polite and kind. People generally did soften to Clover. Ther

t seemed, and the ticket-agent recommended the Sherman House

st of Chicago. From the East? Just so. You've not seen our opera-house yet, I suppose. Denver folks are rat

ly one night. My brother's been ill, and we are going di

out-actually came out!-and with a long shrill whistle summoned a porter whom he addressed as, "Here, you Pat," and bade, "Take

nd I hope you'll have a good night. If you'll come to me

n, and rejoined her party, who were pat

led off, "I had no idea that Denver was such a

ps!" said Clover,

ighborhood of the Rocky Mountains; but she knew that Denver had only existed

a nice grocery! We needn't have packed all those oatmeal biscuits if only we had know

include every known luxury, from Oregon salmon and Lake Superior white-fish to frozen sherbets and California peaches and apricots. But wondermen

d brilliance as is seldom seen east of Colorado banished these mi

s things turn up, keep Phil happy, and satisfy Mrs. Watson,-if I can,-and not worry about

nd lost the long morning face he had got up with, while even Mrs. Watson caught the contagion, and became fairly ho

ed in the sun, of the more southern ranges. After a while they found themselves running parallel to a mountain chain of strange and beautiful forms, green almost to the top, and intersected with deep ravines and cliffs which the conductor informed them were "canyons." They seemed quite near at hand, for their bases sank into low rounded hills covered with woods, these melted into undulating table-lands, and those again into a narrow strip of park-like plain across which ran the track. Flowers innumerable grew on this plain, mixed w

e had winter before last was-Don't you think those mountains are dreadfully bright and distinct? I don't like such high-colored rocks. Even the green looks red, somehow. I like soft, hazy mountains like Blue Hill and Wachusett. Ellen spent a summer up at Pr

m," observed Phil; "two or three scouts with breech-loaders u

ike the color, it's so rich; and I think the mountains are perfectly

utiful range, seen through the clear atmosphere, seemed only a mile or two away, though in reality it was eight or ten. To the east the plain widened again into great upland sweeps like the Kentish Downs, with here

had fairly stopped, a brisk, active little man jumped on board, and walking into the car, began to look about him with keen, observant eyes. After one sweeping

d when you were to leave Chicago, and I have come do

ry kind of you! And so papa telegraphed! I never thought of tha

-And though I've always been in the habit of going about a good deal, it's always been in the East, of course, and things are-What are we going to do first, Dr. Hope? Miss Carr has a great deal of energy for a girl, but naturally-I suppose ther

find it very comfortable if you prefer to go there. But for these young people I've taken rooms at a boarding-house, a

" she replied; but M

say that in the long run I have generally found that the most expensive places turn out the cheapest

-five dollars a week, I think, if

ed Mrs. Watson, meditatively,

d I can spend, Dr. Hope; I am glad yo

, and that it stood to reason that they must be the best. Dr. Hope rather encouraged this view, and proposed that she should stop and look at some rooms; but no, she could not desert her young charges and would go on, though at the same time she must say that her opinion as an older person who had seen mo

or the keen-witted little doctor to fathom the peculiarities of Clover's "chaperone," and he would most willingly have planted her in the congenial soil of the Shoshone House, which would have provided a wider fie

ing along the edge of the plateau, opposite the mountain range. Pretty houses stood on eith

town," said Clover, amazed; "I t

bears. Well; sixteen years ago we could have filled the bill pretty well. Then there was not a single house in St. Helen's,-not even a tent, and not one of the trees that you see here had been planted. Now we have three railroads meeting a

the place grow so f

up on coughings. It is a town for invalids. Half the

t rather d

id not look so well that no one would

ed. It was a large shabby structure, with a piazza above as well as below, and on these piazzas various peopl

ther scarce at St. Helen's. I know all about the table here and the drainage; and the view is desirable, and Mrs. Mar

the whole country known as "the East," means anywhere from Maine to Michigan, and that such trivial geographical differences as exist between the different sections seem scarcely worth conside

s the best I could do. But your old lady would be much b

that people wouldn't persist in callin

showed Clover and Phil their rooms, which had been secured for them, and the

h a sunny south window and two others looking towards the west a

nd out," said Dr. Hope; "and I thought this large room w

we can say," replied Clover, holding out her hand as the doct

hat besides the care of this boy here, I'm in charge of you too, and have the inside track of the rest of the friends you are going to make in Colorado. I expect to be called on whenever you want anything, or feel lonesome, or are at a loss in any way. My wife is comi

ey?" she called

he answered,

friend right off who knows papa, and does things for us because we are pap

seem fair that I sho

ep. I shall sit here with you all the time; and isn't it lovely that we have those enchanting moun

d like people they present characters and individualities of their own. The noble lines of Mount Cheyenne are full of a strange dignity; but it is dignity mixed with an indefinable charm. The canyons nestle about it

nd loved it better and better all the time that she stayed at St. Helen's. "Dr. Hope a

y on the sofa watching Clover unpack. "I get so tired of being all t

, laid some books and her writing-case upon it, and

up a little, I think I'll go and see what has become of Mrs. Watson. She'll thi

"I'm all right for an hour to come. Don't

r him before she went and

im before she left, and shut

ry first morning," she said. "That woul

on in very low spir

legant room, solid black walnut with marble tops, and-Lighthouses too; I have three of them in view, and they are really company for me on dark nights. I don't want to be fussy, but really to look out on nothing but a side yard with some trees-and they are

as a cone-shaped thing of white unburned clay, whose use she cou

e front ones?" went on M

front, and is a nice large one with a view of the mountains. I wish there were one just like it f

should give you the preference. Though the Phillips's are accustomed-but there, it's no use; only, as

aps somebody will go away, and Mrs. Mars

fact, there is one-that tall man in gray in the reclining-chair-who didn't seem to me likel

ms with some ladies who had sat opposite them at table. Mrs. Hope came for a call; a pretty little woman, as friendly and kind as her husband. Then Clover and Phil went out for a stroll

therwise-enough to tempt any number of Rosamonds. Handsome carriages drawn by fine horses rolled past them, with well-dressed people inside. In short, St. Helen's was exactly like a thriving Eastern town of double its size, with the difference that here a g

minerals, Pueblo pottery, stuffed animals, and Indian blankets; and Phil had just commented on the beauty of

tnut. He wore spurs and a broad-brimmed sombrero, and carried in his hand a whip which seemed two-thirds lash. As he put his foot into the stirrup, he

e said; "but aren't yo

t still without the least notion

r hard too; for I knew you at once. I suppose I'm a good deal changed, though, and perhaps I shouldn't ha

ink how you came to know me. I was only fourteen when I saw you last, and you were quite a little boy. What good luck that we s

rking his elbow toward the northwest, "but I ride in often

is is my brother Phil. Don't you recollect

u all the time, so that I felt intimately acquainted with all the family. Wel

om

People from the East come out all the while. They are as thick as bumblebees at St. Helen's, but they don't amoun

s, though. She met them in Nice when she was there, and they sent

and he came out once and stayed a month on the ranch with me. That was wh

lace,-Mrs. Marsh's,

out, and had caught the mountain fever, and she was ever

away is y

hil must come out and stay with us sometime this s

' and who is 'us'?"

exciting sometimes, I can tell you, for the cattle get wild, and it's all we can do to manage them. You should see some of our boys ride; it's

ou a pa

o he does not count. That's Bert Talcott. He's a New York fellow. T

he n

ng with the rest of the West. "Wait till I bring him to see you. We'll come in on purpose some day

anter down the street and turn for a last flourish of the hat. "He was the roughest, scrubbies

never he has a mind to," said Phil, enviously

ometimes. It will be nice to go out and see Clarence

Watson, whoever else it is. She

're supposed to be lean

mp standing edgewise, as the man says in the play. Do you suppose I don't kno

t to be polite to her, Phil

h, if she will just leave

mis