A favorite lounging-spot of Madeline’s was a shaded niche under the lee of crags facing the east.  Here the outlook was entirely different from that on the western side.  It was not red and white and glaring, nor so changeable that it taxed attention.  This eastern view was one of the mountains and valleys, where, to be sure, there were arid patches; but the restful green of pine and fir was there, and the cool gray of crags.  Bold and rugged indeed were these mountain features, yet they were companionably close, not immeasurably distant and unattainable like the desert.  Here in the shade of afternoon Madeline and Edith would often lounge under a low-branched tree.  Seldom they talked much, for it was afternoon and dreamy with the strange spell of this mountain fastness.  There was smoky haze in the valleys, a fleecy cloud resting over the peaks, a sailing eagle in the blue sky, silence that was the unbroken silence of the wild heights, and a soft wind laden with incense of pine.

One afternoon, however, Edith appeared prone to talk seriously.

“Majesty, I must go home soon.  I cannot stay out here forever.  Are you going back with me?”

“Well, maybe,” replied Madeline, thoughtfully.  “I have considered it.  I shall have to visit home some time.  But this summer mother and father are going to Europe.”

“See here, Majesty Hammond, do you intend to spend the rest of your life in this wilderness?” asked Edith, bluntly.

Madeline was silent.

“Oh, it is glorious!  Don’t misunderstand me, dear,” went on Edith, earnestly, as she laid her hand on Madeline’s.  “This trip has been a revelation to me.  I did not tell you, Majesty, that I was ill when I arrived.  Now I’m well.  So well!  Look at Helen, too.  Why, she was a ghost when we got here.  Now she is brown and strong and beautiful.  If it were for nothing else than this wonderful gift of health I would love the West.  But I have come to love it for other things—­even spiritual things.  Majesty, I have been studying you.  I see and feel what this life has made of you.  When I came I wondered at your strength, your virility, your serenity, your happiness.  And I was stunned.  I wondered at the causes of your change.  Now I know.  You were sick of idleness, sick of uselessness, if not of society—­sick of the horrible noises and smells and contacts one can no longer escape in the cities.  I am sick of all that, too, and I could tell you many women of our kind who suffer in a like manner.  You have done what many of us want to do, but have not the courage.  You have left it.  I am not blind to the splendid difference you have made in your life.  I think I would have discovered, even if your brother had not told me, what good you have done to the Mexicans and cattlemen of your range.  Then you have work to do.  That is much the secret of your happiness, is it not?  Tell me.  Tell me something of what it means to you?”