“Austin, don’t think your old mammy is trying to manage you,” Mrs. Phelps was suddenly mild and affectionate.  “But think, dear.  Taylor says the salary is not less than fifteen thousand.  You could have a lovely home, near me.  Think of the opera, of having a really formal dinner again, of going to Cousin Robert Stokes’s for Christmas, and yachting with Taylor and Gerry.”

Austin was still now, evidently he was thinking.

“My idea,” his mother went on reasonably, “would be to have you come on with me now, at once.  See Uncle William,—­we mustn’t keep his kindness waiting, must we?—­get used to the new work, make sure of yourself.  Then come back for Manzanita, or have her come on—­” She paused, her eyes a question.

“I’d hate to leave Yerba Buena—­” Austin visibly hesitated.

“But, Austin, you must sooner or later.”  Mrs. Phelps was framing a triumphant letter to Cornelia in her mind.

But just then Manzanita came running around the corner of the house, and seeing them, took the porch steps in two bounds, and came to lean on Austin’s shoulder.

“Austin!” she burst out excitedly.  “I want you to ride straight down to the stock pens,—­they’ve got a thousand steers on the flats there going through from Portland, and the men say they aren’t to leave the cars to-night!  I told them they would have to turn them out and water them, and they just laughed!  Will you go down?” She was breathing hard like an impatient child, her cheeks two poppies, her eyes blazing.  “Will you?  Will you?”

“Sure I will, if you’ll do something for me.”  Austin pulled her toward him.

“Well, there!” She gave him a child’s impersonal kiss.  “You’ll make them water them, won’t you, Austin?”

“Oh, yes.  I’ll ’tend to them.”  Austin got up, his arm about her.  “Look here,” said he.  “How’d you like to come and live in Boston?”

Her eyes went quickly from him to his mother.

“I wouldn’t!” she said, breathing quickly and defiantly.

“Never?”

“Never, never, never!  Unless it was just to visit.  Why, Austin—­” her reproachful eyes accused him, “you said we needn’t, ever!  You know I couldn’t live in a street!”

Austin laughed again.  “Well, that settles Uncle William!” he announced comfortably.  “I’ll write him to-morrow, mother.  Come on, now, we’ll settle this other trouble!”

And he and Manzanita disappeared in the direction of the stable.

Mrs. Phelps sat thinking, deep red spots burning in her cheeks.  Things could not go on this way.  Yet she would not give up.  She suddenly determined to try an idea of Cornelia’s.

So the word went all over the ranch-house next day that Mrs. Phelps was ill.  The nature of the illness was not specified, but she could not leave her bed.  Austin was all filial sympathy, Manzanita an untiring nurse.  Hong Fat sent up all sorts of kitchen delicacies, the boys brought trout, and rare ferns, and wild blackberries in from their daily excursions, for her especial benefit, and before two days were over, every hour found some distant neighbor at the rancho with offers of sympathy and assistance.  An old doctor came up from Emville at once, and Jose and Marty accompanied him all the twenty miles back into town for medicines.