made the place grow so fast?" asked Clover.

"If I may be allowed a professional pun, it is built up on coughings. It
is a town for invalids. Half the people here came out for the benefit of
their lungs."

"Isn't that rather depressing?"

"It would be more so if most of them did not look so well that no one
would suspect them of being ill. Here we are."

Clover looked out eagerly. There was nothing picturesque about the house
at whose gate the carriage had stopped. It was a large shabby structure,
with a piazza above as well as below, and on these piazzas various people
were sitting who looked unmistakably ill. The front of the house, however,
commanded the fine mountain view.

"You see," explained Dr. Hope, drawing Clover aside, "boarding-places that
are both comfortable and reasonable are rather scarce at St. Helen's. I
know all about the table here and the drainage; and the view is desirable,
and Mrs. Marsh, who keeps the house, is one of the best women we have.
She's from down your way too,--Barnstable, Mass., I think."

Clover privately wondered how Barnstable, Mass., could be classed as
"down" the same way with Burnet, not having learned as yet that to the
soaring Western mind that insignificant fraction of the whole country
known as "the East," means anywhere from Maine to Michigan, and that such
trivial geographical differences as exist between the different sections
seem scarcely worth consideration when compared with the vast spaces
which lie beyond toward the setting sun. But perhaps Dr. Hope was only
trying to tease her, for he twinkled amusedly at her puzzled face as he
went on,--

"I think you can make yourselves comfortable here. It was the best I could
do. But your old lady would be much better suited at the Shoshone, and I
wish she'd go there."

Clover could not help laughing. "I wish that people wouldn't persist in
calling Mrs. Watson my old lady," she thought.

Mrs. Marsh, a pleasant-looking person, came to meet them as they entered.
She showed Clover and Phil their rooms, which had been secured for them,
and then carried Mrs. Watson off to look at another which she could have
if she liked.

The rooms were on the third floor. A big front one for Phil, with a sunny
south window and two others looking towards the west and the mountains,
and, opening from it, a smaller room for Clover.

"Your brother ought to live in fresh air both in doors and out," said Dr.
Hope; "and I thought this large