h persuasive messages and arguments, and both Clover
and Elsie wrote him a long letter on the subject. On the very eve of the
departure came a second telegram. Telegrams were not every-day things in
the High Valley, the nearest "wire" being at the Ute Hotel five miles
away; and the arrival of the messenger on horseback created a momentary
panic.

This telegram was also from Dr. Carr. It was addressed to Johnnie,--

Following just received: "Miss Inches died to-day
of pneumonia." No particulars.
P. CARR.

It was a great shock to poor Johnnie. She and "Mamma Marian," as she
still called her god-mother, had been warm friends always; they
corresponded regularly; Johnnie had made her several long visits at
Inches Mills, and she had written to her among the first with the news
of her engagement.

"She never got it. She never will know about Lionel," she kept repeating
mournfully. "And now I can never tell her about any of my plans, and she
would have been so pleased and interested. She always cared so much for
what I cared about, and I hoped she would come out here for a long visit
some day, and see you all. Oh dear, oh dear! what a sad ending to our
happy time!"

"Not an ending, only an interruption," put in the comforting Clover. But
John for a time could not be consoled, and the party broke up under a
cloud, literal as well as metaphorical, for the first snow-storm was
drifting over the plain as they drove down the pass, the melting flakes
instantly drunk up by the sand; all the soft blue of distance had
vanished, and a gray mist wrapped the mountain tops. The High Valley was
in temporary eclipse, its brightness and sparkle put by for the moment.

But nothing could long eclipse the sunshine of such youthful hearts and
hopes. Before long John's letters grew cheerful again, and presently she
wrote to announce a wonderful piece of news.

"Something very strange has happened," she began. "I am an heiress! It
is just like the girls in books! Yesterday came a letter from a firm of
lawyers in Boston with a long document enclosed. It was an extract from
Mamma Marian's will; and only think,--she has left me a legacy of thirty
thousand dollars! Dear thing! and she never knew about my engagement
either, or how wonderfully it was going to help in our plans. She just
did it because she loved me. 'To Joanna Inches Carr, my namesake and
child by affection,' th