“But I won’t get to her to-night, will I?” wailed Kate.

“No, you won’t get to her to-night,” he echoed.  “But I guess she ain’t so helpless she can’t do up her back hair without you, is she?”

“Her blouse buttons up behind,” Kate murmured, as one murmurs in a painful dream.  “And, oh, by the powers, if I haven’t got her nightgown in this dressing-bag!”

Naturally the manager was not deeply interested in Mrs. May’s nightgown.  As for Mrs. May herself, she was not yet conscious of the loss of it.  She was thinking, at first, about the pictures which she had not seen in the Illustrated London News, and the girl’s exclamation:  “I hope they won’t be killed!” Then, later, of the valley through whose door she had just entered with Nick Hilliard, the hidden valley which Indians knew and loved long before a few cattle-seeking American soldiers ferreted out the secret.

The voice of the Merced drowned the dull voice of the past which had suddenly called to her.  It was a gay laughing voice that sang among the tumbled rocks sent down to the river for playthings, by her tall brothers the mountains; and the voices of pines and cedars answered, all singing the same high song in the same language—­the language of Nature.  Only, they sang in different tones and different keys—­soprano and contralto, tenor and bass.  The song was so sweet that no one could think of anything else, unless it might be of love; for the song told of love, because nature is love.

As the sun rose higher and warmed the air, the valley was like a great box full of spices, such as the three Wise Men of the East carried for an offering when they followed their Star; a secret, golden box was the valley, high-sided, with a lid of turquoise and sapphire, which was the sky itself.

The deep, still trout-pools of the Merced—­bravest and strongest river of the valley—­were coloured like beds of purple pansies; or they were vivid green, glinting with sparks of gold, like the wings of a Brazilian beetle.  Far down in the clear depths, Angela caught glimpses of darting fish, swift as silver arrows shot from an unseen bow.  And close to the sky, high on the rocky sides of the Yosemite treasure-chest, were curiously traced bas-reliefs, which might have been carved by a dead race of giants:  heads of elephants, profiles of Indians and Titanic tortoises, most of them appropriately and whimsically named by ancient pioneers.

“The Yosemite!” Angela said, over and over to herself.  “I’m in the Yosemite Valley!”

Once, in the heart of a forest, a deer sprang out on to the road and stood alert, quivering, as the stage lumbered heavily toward it through sparkling red dust like powdered rubies.  Then, suddenly, when the horses were almost upon it, the delicate creature bounded away, vanishing among the shadows which seemed to have given it birth, as a diving fish is swallowed up by water and lost to sight.  This vision lingered in Angela’s memory as one of the loveliest of the day; but the great cataracts did their startling best, later, to paint out the earlier pictures.