“Just wait till you hear her talk,” cried the exasperated Clover.  “You will find that I didn’t mistake her at all.  Oh, why did Mrs. Hall interfere?  It would all seem so easy in comparison—­so perfectly easy—­if only Philly and I were alone together.”

Katy thought that Clover was fretted and disposed to exaggerate; but after Mrs. Watson joined them a little later, she changed her opinion.  The old lady was an inveterate talker, and her habit of only half finishing her sentences made it difficult to follow the meanderings of her rambling discourse.  It turned largely on her daughter, Mrs. Phillips, her husband, children, house, furniture, habits, tastes, and the Phillips connection generally.

“She’s the only one I’ve got,” she informed Mrs. Dayton; “so of course she’s all-important to me.  Jane Phillips—­that’s Henry’s youngest sister—­often says that really of all the women she ever knew Ellen is the most—­And there’s plenty to do always, of course, with three children and such a large elegant house and company coming all the—­It’s lucky that there’s plenty to do with.  Henry’s very liberal.  He likes to have things nice, so Ellen she—­Why, when I was packing up to come away he brought me that repousse fruit-knife there in my bag—­Oh, it’s in my other bag!  Never mind; I’ll show it to you some other time—­solid silver, you know.  Bigelow and Kennard—­their things always good, though expensive; and my son-in-law he said, ‘You’re going to a fruit country, and—­’ Mrs. Peters doesn’t think there is so much fruit, though.  All sent on from California, as I wrote,—­and I guess Ellen and Henry were surprised to hear it.”

Katy held serious counsel with herself that night as to what she should do about this extraordinary “guide, philosopher, and friend” whom the Fates had provided for Clover.  She saw that her father, from very over-anxiety, had made a mistake, and complicated Clover’s inevitable cares with a most undesirable companion, who would add to rather than relieve them.  She could not decide what was best to do; and in fact the time was short for doing anything, for the next evening would bring them to Denver, and poor Clover must be left to face the situation by herself as best she might.

Katy finally concluded to write her father plainly how things stood, and beg him to set Clover’s mind quite at rest as to any responsibility for Mrs. Watson, and also to have a talk with that lady herself, and explain matters as clearly as she could.  It seemed all that was in her power.

Next day the party woke to a wonderful sense of lightness and exhilaration which no one could account for till the conductor told them that the apparently level plain over which they were speeding was more than four thousand feet above the sea.  It seemed impossible to believe it.  Hour by hour they climbed; but the climb was imperceptible.  Now four thousand six hundred feet of elevation was reported, now four