it rather suits me that she shouldn't.
You're all delightful, and I'm very fond of you, I'm sure; but for a
wife I think I like some one more like myself."

"Of all the droll explanations that I ever heard, that is quite the
drollest," said Elsie to her husband afterward. "The idea of a man's
falling in love with a woman because she's duller than his own sisters!
Nobody but Dorry would ever have thought of it."

CHAPTER X.

A DOUBLE KNOT.

THE next few days in the High Valley were too full of excitement and
discussions to be quite comfortable for anybody. Imogen was seized with
compunctions at leaving Lionel without a housekeeper, and proposed to
Dorry that their wedding should be deferred till the others were ready
to be married also,--a suggestion to which Dorry would not listen for a
moment. There were long business-talks between the ranch partners as to
hows and whens, letters to be written, and innumerable confabulations
between the three sisters, in which Imogen took part, for she counted as
a fourth sister now. Clover and Elsie listened and planned and advised,
and found their chief difficulty to consist in hiding and keeping in the
background their unfeigned and flattering joy over the whole
arrangement. It made matters so delightfully easy all round to have
Imogen engaged to Dorry, and it was so much to their own individual
advantage to exchange her for Johnnie that they really dared not express
their delight too openly.

The great question with all was how papa would take the announcement,
and whether he could be induced to carry out his half promise of leaving
Burnet and coming to live with them in the Valley. They waited anxiously
for his reply to the letters. It came by telegraph two days before they
had dared to hope for it, and was as follows:--

God bless you all four! Genesis xliii. 14.
P. CARR.

This Biblical addition nearly broke John's heart. Her sisters had to
comfort her with all manner of hopeful auguries and promises.

"He'll be glad enough over it in time," they told her. "Think what it
would have been if you had been going to marry a Californian, or a man
with an orange plantation in Florida. He'll see that it's all for the
best as soon as he gets out here, and he _must_ come. Johnnie, you must
never let him off. Don't take 'no' for an answer. It is so important to
us all that he should consent."

They primed her wit