e, who was so comically ready to fire up and offer battle if she
suspected any one of undervaluing her sister. So the month of July went.

It was on the morning of the last day, when the long summer had reached
its height of ripeness and completeness, and all things seemed making
themselves ready for Rose Red, who was expected in three days more, that
Clover, sitting with her work on the shaded western piazza, saw the
unwonted spectacle of a carriage slowly mounting the steep road up the
Valley. It was so unusual to see any wheeled vehicle there, except their
own carryall, that it caused a universal excitement. Elsie ran to the
window overhead with Phillida in her arms; little Geoff stood on the
porch staring out of a pair of astonished eyes, and Clover came forward
to meet the new arrivals with an unmistakable look of surprise in her
face. The gentleman who was driving and the lady beside him were quite
unknown to her; but from the back part of the carriage a head extended
itself,--an elderly head, with a bang of oddly frizzled gray hair and a
pair of watery blue eyes, all surmounted by an eccentric shade hat, and
all beaming and twittering with recognition and excitement. It took
Clover a moment to disentangle her ideas; then she perceived that it was
Mrs. Watson, who, when she and Phil first came out to Colorado, years
before, came with them, and for a time had been one of the chief trials
and perplexities of their life there.

"Well, my dear, and I don't wonder that you look astonished, for no one
would suppose that after all I went through with I should ever again--
This is my daughter, and her husband, you know, and of course their
coming made it seem quite-- We are staying in the Ute Valley; only five
miles over, they said it was, but such miles! I'd rather ride ten on a
level, any day, as I told Ellen, and--well, they said you were living up
here; and though the road was pretty rough, it was possible to-- And if
ever there was a man who could drive a buggy up to the moon, as Ellen
declares, Henry is the--but really I was hardly prepared for--but any
way we started, and here we are! What a wild sort of place it is that
you are living in, my dear Miss Carr--not that I ought to call you Miss
Carr, for-- I got your cards, of course, and I was told then that-- And
your sister marrying the other young man and coming out to live here
too! that must be very-- Oh, dear me! is that little boy yours? Well, I
never!"

"I