d to them." Austin got up, his arm about her. "Look
here," said he. "How'd you like to come and live in Boston?"

Her eyes went quickly from him to his mother.

"I wouldn't!" she said, breathing quickly and defiantly.

"Never?"

"Never, never, never! Unless it was just to visit. Why, Austin--" her
reproachful eyes accused him, "you said we needn't, ever! You KNOW I
couldn't live in a street!"

Austin laughed again. "Well, that settles Uncle William!" he announced
comfortably. "I'll write him to-morrow, mother. Come on, now, we'll
settle this other trouble!"

And he and Manzanita disappeared in the direction of the stable.

Mrs. Phelps sat thinking, deep red spots burning in her cheeks. Things
could not go on this way. Yet she would not give up. She suddenly
determined to try an idea of Cornelia's.

So the word went all over the ranch-house next day that Mrs. Phelps was
ill. The nature of the illness was not specified, but she could not
leave her bed. Austin was all filial sympathy, Manzanita an untiring
nurse. Hong Fat sent up all sorts of kitchen delicacies, the boys
brought trout, and rare ferns, and wild blackberries in from their
daily excursions, for her especial benefit, and before two days were
over, every hour found some distant neighbor at the rancho with offers
of sympathy and assistance. An old doctor came up from Emville at once,
and Jose and Marty accompanied him all the twenty miles back into town
for medicines.

But days went by, and the invalid was no better. She lay, quiet and
uncomplaining, in the airy bedroom, while October walked over the
mountain ranges, and the grapes were gathered, and the apples brought
in. She took the doctor's medicine, and his advice, and agreed
pleasantly with him that she would soon be well enough to go home, and
would be better off there. But she would not try to get up.

One afternoon, while she was lying with closed eyes, she heard the
rattle of the doctor's old buggy outside, and heard Manzanita greet him
from where she was labelling jelly glasses on the porch. Mrs. Phelps
could trace the old man's panting approach to a porch chair, and heard
Manzanita go into the house with a promise of lemonade and crullers. In
a few minutes she was back again, and the clink of ice against glass
sounded pleasantly in the hot afternoon.

"Well, how is she?" said the doctor, presently, with a long, wet gasp
of satisfaction.

"She's asleep," answered Manzanita. "I just peek