re
cultivated ranches and gardens were so screened by eucalyptus and pepper
trees, palm and live oak, myriads of roses of every color and variety,
and gaudy plants gathered there from the entire girth of the
tropical world, that to the traveler on the highway trees and flowers
predominated. The greatest treasure of the valley was the enthusiastic
stream of icy mountain water that wandered through the near-by canyon
and followed the length of the valley on its singing, chuckling way
to the ocean. All the residents of Lilac Valley had to do to entrance
strangers with the location was to show any one of a dozen vantage
points, and let visitors test for themselves the quality of the sunshine
and air, and study the picture made by the broad stretch of intensively
cultivated valley, walled on either side by mountains whose highest
peaks were often cloud-draped and for ever shifting their delicate
pastel shades from gray to blue, from lavender to purple, from tawny
yellow to sepia, under the play of the sun and clouds.

They had not been seated three minutes before Linda realized from her
knowledge of Eileen that the shock had been too great, if such a thing
might be said of so resourceful a creature as Eileen. Evidently she was
going to sulk in the hope that this would prove that any party was a
failure at which she did not exert herself to be gracious. It had not
been in Linda's heart to do more than sit quietly in the place belonging
by right to her, but when she realized what was going to happen, she
sent Marian one swift appealing glance, and then desperately plunged
into conversation to cover Eileen's defection.

"I have been told," she said, addressing the author, "that you are
looking for a home in California. Is this true, or is it merely that
every good Californian hopes this will happen when any distinguished
Easterner comes our way?"

"I can scarcely answer you," said Peter Morrison, "because my ideas on
the subject are still slightly nebulous, but I am only too willing to
see them become concrete."

"You have struck exactly the right place," said Linda. "We have concrete
by the wagon load in this valley and we are perfectly willing to donate
the amount required to materialize your ideas. Do you dream of a whole
ranch or only a nest?"

"Well, the fact is," answered Peter Morrison with a most attractive
drawl in his slow speech, "the fact is the dimensions of my dream must
fit my purse. Ever since I finished c