next, when all
of a sudden Mary threw herself across her mother's lap and began to sob
and laugh at the same time.

"Oh, mamma, the old Vicar was right. It's been awfully hard sometimes to
k-keep inflexible. Sometimes I thought it would nearly k-kill me! But we
did it! We did it! And now fortune _has_ changed in our favor, and
everything is all right!"

A rattle of wheels made her look up and hastily wipe the hem of her pink
skirt across her face again. A wagon was stopping at the gate, and the
man who was to stay in one of the tents and take care of the bees in
their absence was getting out to discuss the details of the
arrangement. Joyce tossed the letter into Mary's lap and rose to follow
her mother out to the hives. There were several matters of business to
arrange with him, and Mary knew it would be some time before they could
resume the exciting conversation he had interrupted. She read the letter
through, hardly believing the magnitude of her good fortune. But, as the
truth of it began to dawn upon her, she felt that she could not possibly
keep such news to herself another instant. It might be an hour before
Joyce and her mother had finished discussing business with the man and
Norman was away fishing somewhere up the canal.

So, settling her hat on her head, she started back over the hot road, so
absorbed in the thought of all she had to tell Hazel that she was wholly
unconscious of the fact that she was still holding tightly to the rope
tied around the rattler's neck. Five feet of snake twitched along behind
her as she started on a run toward the ranch.

CHAPTER III.

IN BEAUTY'S QUEST

"Fortune has at last--fortune has at last--
Fortune has at last changed in our _fa_-vor!"

A hundred times, in the weeks that followed, Mary turned the old Vicar's
saying into sort of a chant, and triumphantly intoned it as she went
about the house, making preparations for her journey. Most of the time
she was not aware that her lips were repeating what her heart was
constantly singing, and one day, to her dire mortification, she chanted
the entire strain in one of the largest dry-goods stores in Phoenix,
before she realized what she was doing.

She had gone with Joyce to select some dress material for herself. It
had been so long since Mary had had any clothes except garments made
over and handed down, that the wealth of choice offered her was almost
overpowering. To be sure it was a barg