ck horse which was tied to a post close by, when its rider emerged
from a shop, and prepared to mount.

He was a rather good-looking young fellow, sunburnt and not very tall, but
with a lithe active figure, red-brown eyes and a long mustache of tawny
chestnut. He wore spurs and a broad-brimmed sombrero, and carried in his
hand a whip which seemed two-thirds lash. As he put his foot into the
stirrup, he turned for another look at Clover, whom he had rather stared
at while passing, and then changing his intention, took it out again, and
came toward them.

"I beg your pardon," he said; "but aren't you--isn't it--Clover Carr?"

"Yes," said Clover, wondering, but still without the least notion as to
whom the stranger might be.

"You've forgotten me?" went on the young man, with a smile which made his
face very bright. "That's rather hard too; for I knew you at once. I
suppose I'm a good deal changed, though, and perhaps I shouldn't have made
you out except for your eyes; they're just the same. Why, Clover, I'm your
cousin, Clarence Page!"

"Clarence Page!" cried Clover, joyfully; "not really! Why, Clarence, I
never should have known you in the world, and I can't think how you came
to know me. I was only fourteen when I saw you last, and you were quite a
little boy. What good luck that we should meet, and on our first day too!
Some one wrote that you were in Colorado, but I had no idea that you lived
at St. Helen's."

"I don't; not much. I'm living on a ranch out that way," jerking his
elbow toward the northwest, "but I ride in often to get the mail. Have you
just come? You said the first day."

"Yes; we only got here this morning. And this is my brother Phil. Don't
you recollect how I used to tell you about him at Ashburn?"

"I should think you did," shaking hands cordially; "she used to talk about
you all the time, so that I felt intimately acquainted with all the
family. Well, I call this first rate luck. It's two years since I saw any
one from home."

"Home?"

"Well; the East, you know. It all seems like home when you're out here.
And I mean any one that I know, of course. People from the East come out
all the while. They are as thick as bumblebees at St. Helen's, but they
don't amount to much unless you know them. Have you seen anything of
mother and Lilly since they got back from Europe, Clover?"

"No, indeed. I haven't seen them since we left Hillsover. Katy has,
though. She met them in Nice when she was t