“Oh, my gracious!” she gasped.  “We forgot that driver.”

She got her purse and hurried outside, but the driver was gone, and only the car remained.  Carol was too ignorant of motor-cars to observe that it was a Harmer Six, she only wondered how on earth he could go off and forget his car.  She carried the puzzle to David, and he could not solve it.

“Are you able to walk at all, David?” asked Connie.

“Yes, indeed,” he said, sitting up proudly, “I can walk half a block if there are no steps to climb.”

“Come out in front and we’ll investigate,” she suggested.

When they reached the car, and it took time for David walked but slowly, he promptly looked at the name plate.

“Harmer Six,” he read.  “Why this is Jerry’s kind of car.”

“Yes, it is his kind,” explained Connie.  “He and Prudence sent this one out for you and Carol and Julia.  They have just established an agency here, and he has made arrangements with the dealer to take entire care of it for you, sending it up when you want it, calling for it when you are through, keeping it in repair, and providing gas and oil,—­and the bill goes to Jerry in Des Moines.”

One would have thought enough happiness had come to the health seekers for one day.  Carol would have sworn she could not possibly be one little bit gladder than she had been before, with David sick, of course.  And now came this!  How David would love it.  She looked at her husband, happily pottering around the engine, turning bolts and buttons as men will do, and she looked at Julia, proudly viewing her own physical beauties in the shining body of the car, and she looked at Connie with the charm and glory of the parsonage life clinging about her like a halo.  Then she turned and walked into the house without a word.  Understandingly, David and Connie allowed her to pass inside without comment.

“Connie,” said David when they were alone, “I believe God will give you a whole chest of stars for your crown for the sweetness that brought you out here.  Carol was sick for something of home.  I wanted her to go back for a visit but she would not leave me.  But she was sick.  She needed some outside life.  I can give her nothing, I take my life from her.  And she needed fresh inspiration, and you have brought it.”  David was silent a moment.  “Connie, whenever things do get shadowy for us, the clouds are pulled back so we may see the sun shining on the slopes more brilliantly than ever.”

Turning quickly she followed his gaze, and a softness came into her eyes as she looked.  Truly the darkness of the canyons seemed only to emphasize the brightness of the ridges above them.

She laid her hand on David’s arm, that strong, shapely, capable hand, and whispered, “David, if I might have what you and Carol have, if I could be happy in the way that you are, I think I should be willing to lose the sunshine on the slopes and dwell entirely in the darkness of the canyons.  But I haven’t got it, I don’t know how to get it.”  Then she added slowly, “But I suppose, having what you two have, one could not lose the sunshine on the slopes.”