nd miles to the lower
gap."

Bailey smiled. "Mrs. Banks said it was a good way to use up the lumber
that was left over from the ranch house. And that bungalow certainly makes
a great showing for the town. It raised the value of the adjoining lots. I
sold three before the shingles were on the walls, and the people who
bought them thought they had a snap."

"All the same, it is a lovely present," said Madame Lucile.

"There's the train, whistling up the valley," said the mayor, but he
paused to ask, almost with diffidence, as he turned to the door: "Say,
what do you think of this tie?"

"I like it." She nodded, with a reassuring smile. "And it's a nice shade
for you; it brings out the blue in your eyes."

The mayor laughed gaily. "I ought to wear it steady after that, but I am
coming to black ones with a frock coat and silk hat. I am going to begin
to-morrow, when those German scientists, on their way home from the
Orient, stop to see Hesperides Vale."

"Oh, I hope you will wear this nice business suit, unless they come late
in the afternoon. It seems more sensible here on the edge of the desert,
and even if you are the first mayor to do it, I know, the world over,
there isn't another as young."

Bailey grew thoughtful. "The mayor in Chicago always wore a Prince Albert.
Why, that long coat and silk hat stood for the office. They were the most
important part of him. But good-by," he said hastily, as the train
whistled again, nearer, "I'll call for you at seven."

Ten minutes later, the mayor stood on the station platform shaking hands
with Mrs. Weatherbee. "Say, I am surprised," he said. "I often wondered
what you thought of the vale. Lighter told me how you drove those colts
through that day, and I was disappointed not to hear from you. You didn't
let me know you had an investment already, and it never occurred to me,
afterwards, that you were our Mrs. Weatherbee."

Then, introductions being over, he assisted Miss Morganstein into the
tonneau with the bridal couple and gave the seat in front to Mrs.
Weatherbee. He drove very slowly up the new thoroughfare, past the Bailey
building, where she expressed her astonishment at the inviting window
display of the millinery store. He explained that offices for the
_Weatherbee Record_ had been reserved on the second floor, and that in the
hall, in the third story, the first inaugural ball was to be given the
following night. It had been postponed a few days until her arri