has died a natural death.  What possible charm this part of the world can have for him is a mystery to me.  To compare this barn of a house to your lovely home is enough to make me long to be there with all my heart.  Instead of my beautiful rooms, and Mary’s constant attendance, imagine your mother writing in a room whose windows have no shades, so that one has the uncomfortable sensation that any one outside may be looking in.  Of course the valley descends very steeply from the ranch-house, and there are thousands of acres of silent woods and hills, but I don’t like it, nevertheless, and shall undress in the dark. ...I shall certainly speak seriously to Austin as soon as possible.”

But the right moment for approaching Austin on the subject of his return to Boston did not immediately present itself, and for several days Manzanita, delighted at having a woman guest, took Mrs. Phelps with her all over the countryside.

“I like lady friends,” said Manzanita once, a little shyly.  “You see it’s ’most always men who visit the rancho, and they’re no fun!”

She used to come, uninvited but serene, into her prospective mother-in-law’s room at night, and artlessly confide in her, while she braided the masses of her glorious hair.  She showed Mrs. Phelps the “swell” pillow she was embroidering to represent an Indian’s head, and which she intended to finish with real beads and real feathers.  She was as eagerly curious as a child about the older woman’s dainty toilet accessories, experimenting with manicure sets and creams and powders with artless pleasure.  “I’m going to have that and do it that way!” she would announce, when impressed by some particular little nice touch about Cornelia’s letters, or some allusion that gave her a new idea.

“If you ever come to Boston, you will be expected to know all these things,” Mrs. Phelps said to her once, a little curiously.

“Oh, but I’ll never go there!” she responded confidently.

“You will have to,” said the other, sharply.  “Austin can hardly spend his whole life here!  His friends are there, his family.  All his traditions are there.  Those may not mean much to him now, but in time to come they will mean more.”

“We’ll make more money than we can spend, right here,” Manzanita said, in a troubled voice.

“Money is not everything, my dear.”

“No—­” Manzanita’s brown fingers went slowly down to the last fine strands of the braid she was finishing.  Then she said, brightening: 

“But I am everything to Aus!  I don’t care what I don’t know, or can’t do, he thinks I’m fine!”