tree. Seldom they talked much, for it was
afternoon and dreamy with the strange spell of this mountain fastness.
There was smoky haze in the valleys, a fleecy cloud resting over the
peaks, a sailing eagle in the blue sky, silence that was the unbroken
silence of the wild heights, and a soft wind laden with incense of pine.

One afternoon, however, Edith appeared prone to talk seriously.

"Majesty, I must go home soon. I cannot stay out here forever. Are you
going back with me?"

"Well, maybe," replied Madeline, thoughtfully. "I have considered it.
I shall have to visit home some time. But this summer mother and father
are going to Europe."

"See here, Majesty Hammond, do you intend to spend the rest of your life
in this wilderness?" asked Edith, bluntly.

Madeline was silent.

"Oh, it is glorious! Don't misunderstand me, dear," went on Edith,
earnestly, as she laid her hand on Madeline's. "This trip has been a
revelation to me. I did not tell you, Majesty, that I was ill when I
arrived. Now I'm well. So well! Look at Helen, too. Why, she was a ghost
when we got here. Now she is brown and strong and beautiful. If it were
for nothing else than this wonderful gift of health I would love the
West. But I have come to love it for other things--even spiritual
things. Majesty, I have been studying you. I see and feel what this life
has made of you. When I came I wondered at your strength, your virility,
your serenity, your happiness. And I was stunned. I wondered at the
causes of your change. Now I know. You were sick of idleness, sick of
uselessness, if not of society--sick of the horrible noises and smells
and contacts one can no longer escape in the cities. I am sick of all
that, too, and I could tell you many women of our kind who suffer in a
like manner. You have done what many of us want to do, but have not the
courage. You have left it. I am not blind to the splendid difference you
have made in your life. I think I would have discovered, even if your
brother had not told me, what good you have done to the Mexicans and
cattlemen of your range. Then you have work to do. That is much the
secret of your happiness, is it not? Tell me. Tell me something of what
it means to you?"

"Work, of course, has much to do with any one's happiness," replied
Madeline. "No one can be happy who has no work. As regards myself--for
the rest I can hardly tell you. I have never tried to put it in words.
Frankly, I believe, if I had not