efer him to the hull caboodle that you girls have married or
are going to marry?" she continued, meditatively biting the end of her
braid.

"Yes."

"Well, he's the only man of the whole lot that hasn't proposed to me
first."

It is presumed that Sparrell made good the omission, or that the family
were glad to get rid of her, for they were married that autumn. And
really a later comparison of the family records shows that while Captain
Fairfax remained "Captain Fairfax," and the other sons-in-law did not
advance proportionately in standing or riches, the lame storekeeper of
Red Gulch became the Hon. Senator Tom Sparrell.

A WIDOW OF THE SANTA ANA VALLEY

The Widow Wade was standing at her bedroom window staring out, in that
vague instinct which compels humanity in moments of doubt and perplexity
to seek this change of observation or superior illumination. Not that
Mrs. Wade's disturbance was of a serious character. She had passed the
acute stage of widowhood by at least two years, and the slight redness
of her soft eyelids as well as the droop of her pretty mouth were
merely the recognized outward and visible signs of the grievously minded
religious community in which she lived. The mourning she still wore
was also partly in conformity with the sad-colored garments of
her neighbors, and the necessities of the rainy season. She was in
comfortable circumstances, the mistress of a large ranch in the valley,
which had lately become more valuable by the extension of a wagon road
through its centre. She was simply worrying whether she should go to
a "sociable" ending with "a dance"--a daring innovation of some
strangers--at the new hotel, or continue to eschew such follies, that
were, according to local belief, unsuited to "a vale of tears."

Indeed at this moment the prospect she gazed abstractedly upon seemed
to justify that lugubrious description. The Santa Ana Valley--a long
monotonous level--was dimly visible through moving curtains of rain or
veils of mist, to the black mourning edge of the horizon, and had looked
like that for months. The valley--in some remote epoch an arm of the San
Francisco Bay--every rainy season seemed to be trying to revert to its
original condition, and, long after the early spring had laid on its
liberal color in strips, bands, and patches of blue and yellow, the
blossoms of mustard and lupine glistened like wet paint. Nevertheless on
that rich alluvial soil Nature's tears seemed