“Your brother will be as strong, or stronger than I at the end of a year,” she said; “or if he doesn’t get well as fast as he ought, you must take him up to the Ute Valley.  That’s where I made my first gain.”

“Where is the valley?”

“Thirty miles away to the northwest,—­up there among the mountains.  It is a great deal higher than this, and such a lovely peaceful place.  I hope you’ll go there.”

“We shall, of course, if Phil needs it; but I like St. Helen’s so much that I would rather stay here if we can.”

Dinner was now announced, and Mrs. Hope led the way into a pretty room hung with engravings and old plates after the modern fashion, where a white-spread table stood decorated with wild-flowers, candle-sticks with little red-shaded tapers, and a pyramid of plums and apricots.  There was the usual succession of soup and fish and roast and salad which one looks for at a dinner on the sea-level, winding up with ice-cream of a highly civilized description, but Clover could scarcely eat for wondering how all these things had come there so soon, so very soon.  It seemed like magic,—­one minute the solemn peaks and passes, the prairie-dogs and the thorny plain, the next all these portieres and rugs and etchings and down pillows and pretty devices in glass and china, as if some enchanter’s wand had tapped the wilderness, and hey, presto! modern civilization had sprung up like Jonah’s gourd all in a minute, or like the palace which Aladdin summoned into being in a single night for the occupation of the Princess of China, by the rubbing of his wonderful lamp.  And then, just as the fruit-plates were put on the table, came a call, and the doctor was out in the hall, “holloing” and conducting with some distant patient one of those mysterious telephonic conversations which to those who overhear seem all replies and no questions.  It was most remarkable, and quite unlike her preconceived ideas of what was likely to take place at the base of the Rocky Mountains.

A pleasant evening followed.  “Poppy” played delightfully on the piano; later came a rubber of whist.  It was like home.

“Before these children go, let us settle about the drive,” said Dr. Hope to his wife.

“Oh, yes!  Miss Carr—­”

“Oh, please, won’t you call me Clover?”

“Indeed I will,—­Clover, then,—­we want to take you for a good long drive to-morrow, and show you something; but the trouble is, the doctor and I are at variance as to what the something shall be.  I want you to see Odin’s Garden; and the doctor insists that you ought to go to the Cheyenne canyons first, because those are his favorites.  Now, which shall it be?  We will leave it to you.”

“But how can I choose?  I don’t know either of them.  What a queer name,—­Odin’s Garden!”

“I’ll tell you how to settle it,” cried Marian Chase, whose nickname it seemed had been given her because when she first came to St. Helen’s she wore a bunch of poppies in her hat.  “Take them to Cheyenne to-morrow; and the next day—­or Thursday—­let me get up a picnic for Odin’s Garden; just a few of our special cronies,—­the Allans and the Blanchards and Mary Pelham and Will Amory.  Will you, dear Mrs. Hope, and be our matron?  That would be lovely.”