so sound asleep that it seemed but a minute before morning.  Phil’s slumbers lasted so long that we had to breakfast without him, for Mrs. Dayton would not let us wake him up.  You can’t think how kind she is, and Mr. Dayton too; and this way of travelling is so easy and delightful that it scarcely seems to tire one at all.  Phil has borne the journey wonderfully well so far.”

At Omaha, on the evening of the second day, Clover’s future “matron” and adviser, Mrs. Watson, was to join them.  She had been telegraphed to from Chicago, and had replied, so that they knew she was expecting them.  Clover’s thoughts were so occupied with curiosity as to what she would turn out to be, that she scarcely realized that she was crossing the Mississippi for the first time, and she gave scant attention to the low bluffs which bound the river, and on which the Indians used to hold their councils in those dim days when there was still an “undiscovered West” set down in geographies and atlases.

As soon as they reached the Omaha side of the river, she and Katy jumped down from the car, and immediately found themselves face to face with an anxious-looking little old lady, with white hair frizzled and banged over a puckered forehead, and a pair of watery blue eyes peering from beneath, evidently in search of somebody.  Her hands were quite full of bags and parcels, and a little heap of similar articles lay on the platform near her, of which she seemed afraid to lose sight for a moment.

“Oh, is it Miss Carr?” was her first salutation.  “I’m Mrs. Watson.  I thought it might be you, from the fact that you got out of that car, and it seems rather different—­I am quite relieved to see you.  I didn’t know but something—­My daughter she said to me as I was coming away, ’Now, Mother, don’t lose yourself, whatever you do.  It seems quite wild to think of you in Canyon this and Canyon that, and the Garden of the Gods!  Do get some one to keep an eye on you, or we shall never hear of you again.  You’ll—­’ It’s quite a comfort that you have got here.  I supposed you would, but the uncertainty—­Oh, dear! that man is carrying off my trunks.  Please run after him and tell him to bring them back!”

“It’s all right; he’s the porter,” explained Mr. Dayton.  “Did you get your checks for Denver or St. Helen’s?”

“Oh, I haven’t any checks yet.  I didn’t know which it ought to be, so I waited till—­Miss Carr and her brother would see to it for me I knew, and I wrote my daughter—­My friend, Mrs. Peters,—­I’ve been staying with her, you know,—­was sick in bed, and I wouldn’t let—­Dear me! what has that gentleman gone off for in such a hurry?”

“He has gone to get your checks,” said Clover, divided between diversion and dismay at this specimen of her future “matron.”  “We only stay here a few minutes, I believe.  Do you know exactly when the train starts, Mrs. Watson?”

“No, dear, I don’t.  I never know anything about trains and things like that.  Somebody always has to tell me, and put me on the cars.  I shall trust to you and your brother to do that now.  It’s a great comfort to have a gentleman to see to things for you.”