"This despatch came last night for Geoff," he explained, dismounting, "and there were a lot of letters besides, so I thought I'd better bring them out. I left the newspapers and the rest at the house, and fetched your share on. Euphane told me where you two were. So this is where the young Youngs are going to live, is it?"

He stepped in at the door and took a critical survey of the interior, while Clover and Elsie examined their letters.

"This telegram is for Geoff," explained Clover. "The Youngs are here,"

and she read:--

Safely landed. We reach Denver Thursday morning, six-thirty.

LIONEL YOUNG.

"So they will get here on Thursday afternoon. It's lucky we came up to-day. My letters are from Johnnie and Cecy Slack. Johnnie says--"

She was interrupted by a joyful shriek from Clover, who had torn open her letter and was eagerly reading it.

"Oh, Elsie, Elsie, what do you think is going to happen? The most enchanting thing! Rose Red is coming out here in August! She and Mr.

Browne and Roslein! Was there ever anything so nice in this world! Just hear what she says:"--

BOSTON, June 30.

MY DUCKY-DADDLES AND MY DEAR ELSIE GIRL,--I have something so wonderful to tell that I can scarcely find words in which to tell it. A kind Providence _and_ the A. T. and S. F. R. R. have just decided that Deniston must go to New Mexico early in August. This would not have been at all delightful under ordinary circ.u.mstances, for it would only have meant perspiration on his part and widowhood on mine, but most fortunately, some angels with a private car of their own have turned up, and have asked all three of us to go out with them as far as Santa Fe. What _do_ you think of that? It is not the Daytons, who seem only to exist to carry you to and fro from Burnet to Colorado free of expense, this time, but another batch of angels who have to do with the road,--name of Hopkinson.

I never set eyes on them, but they appear to my imagination equipped with the largest kind of wings, and nimbuses round their heads as big as shade-hats.

I have always longed to get out somehow to your Enchanted Valley, and see all your mysterious husbands and babies, and find out for myself what the charm is that makes you so wonderfully contented there, so far from West Cedar Street and the other centres of light and culture, but I never supposed I could come unless I walked. But now I _am_ coming! I do hope none of you have the small-pox, or pleuro-pneumonia, or the "foot-and-mouth disease" (whatever that is), or any other of the ills to which men and cattle are subject, and which will stand in the way of the visit. Deniston, of course, will be forced to go right through to Santa Fe, but Roslein and I are at your service if you like to have us. We don't care for scenery, we don't want to see Mexico or the Pacific coast, or the buried cities of Central America, or the Zuni corn dance,--if there is such a thing,--or any alkaline plains, or pueblos, or b.u.t.tes, or buffalo wallows; we only want to see you, individually and collectively, and the High Valley. May we come and stay a fortnight? Deniston thinks he shall be gone at least as long as that.

We expect to leave Boston on the 31st of July. You will know what time we ought to get to St.

Helen's,--I don't, and I don't care, so only we get there and find you at the station. Oh, my dear Clovy, isn't it fun?

I have seen several of our old school-set lately, Esther Dearborn for one. She is Mrs. Joseph P.

Allen now, as you know, and has come to live at Chestnut Hill, quite close by. I had never seen her since her marriage, nearly five years since, till the other day, when she asked me out to lunch, and introduced me to Mr. Joseph P., who seems a very nice man, and also--now don't faint utterly, but you will! to their seven children! He had two of his own when they married, and they have had two pairs of twins since, and "a singleton," as they say in whist. Such a houseful you never did see; but the twins are lovely, and Esther looks very fat and happy and well-to-do, and says she doesn't mind it a bit, and sees more clearly every day that the thing she was born for was to take the charge of a large family. Her Joseph P. is very well off, too. I should judge that they "could have cranberry sauce every day and never feel the difference," which an old cousin of my mother's, whom I dimly remember as a part of my childhood, used to regard as representing the high-water mark of wealth.

Mary Strothers has been in town lately, too. She has only one child, a little girl, which seems miserably few compared with Esther, but on the other hand she has never been without neuralgia in the face for one moment since she went to live in the Hoosac Tunnel, she told me, so there are compensations. She seems happy for all that, poor dear Mary. Ellen Gray never has married at all, you know. She goes into good works instead, girls'

Friendlies and all sorts of usefulnesses. I do admire her so much, she is a standing reproach and example to me. "Wish I were a better boy," as your brother Dorry said in his journal.

Mother is well and my father, but the house seems empty and lonely now. We can never get used to dear grandmamma's loss, and Sylvia is gone too.

She and Tom sailed for Europe in April, and it makes a great difference having them away, even for a summer. My brother-in-law is such a nice fellow, I hope you will know him some day.

And all this time I have forgotten to tell you the chief news of all, which is that I have seen Katy.

Deniston and I spent Sunday before last with her at the Torpedo station. She has a cosey, funny little house, one of a row of five or six, built on the spine, so to speak, of a narrow, steep island, with a beautiful view of Newport just across the water. It was a superb day, all shimmery blue and gold, and we spent most of our time sitting in a shady corner of the piazza, and talking of the old times and of all of you. I didn't know then of this enchanting Western plan, or we should have had a great deal more to talk about. The dear Katy looks very well and handsome, and was perfectly dear, as she always is, and she says the Newport climate suits her to perfection.

Your brother-in-law is a stunner! I asked Katy if she wasn't going out to see you soon, and she said not till Ned went to sea next spring, then she should go for a long visit.

Write at once if we may come. I won't begin on the subject of Roslein, whom you will never know, she has grown so. She goes about saying rapturously, "I shall see little Geoff! I shall see Phillida! I shall see Aunt Clovy! Perhaps I shall ride on a horse!" You'll never have the heart to disappoint her. My "milk teeth are chattering with fright" at the idea of so much railroad, as one of her books says, but for all that we are coming, if you let us. Do let us!

YOUR OWN ROSE RED.

"Let them! I should think so," cried Clover, with a little skip of rapture. "Dear, dear Rose! Elsie, the nicest sort of things do happen out here, don't they?"

CHAPTER V.

ARRIVAL.

THE train from Denver was nearing St. Helen's,--and Imogen Young looked eagerly from the window for a first sight of the place. Their journey had been exhaustingly hot during its last stages, the alkaline dust most trying, and they had had a brief experience of a sand-storm on the plains, which gave her a new idea as to what wind and grit can accomplish in the way of discomfort. She was very tired, and quite disposed to be critical and unenthusiastic; still she had been compelled to admit that the run down from Denver lay over an interesting country.

The town on its plateau was shining in full sunshine, as it had done when Clover landed there six years before, but its outlines had greatly changed with the increase of buildings. The mountain range opposite was darkly blue from the shadows of a heavy thunder gust which was slowly rolling away southward. The plains between were of tawny yellow, but the belts of mesa above showed the richest green, except where the lines of alfalfa and grain were broken by white patches of mentzelia and poppies.

It was wonderfully beautiful, but the town itself looked so much larger than Imogen had expected that she exclaimed with surprise:--

"Why, Lion, it's a city! You said you were bringing me out to live in the wilderness. What made you tell such stories? It looks bigger than Bideford."

"It looks larger than it did when I came away," replied her brother.

"Two, three, six,--eight fine new houses on Monument Avenue, by Jove, and any number off there toward the north. You've no idea how these Western places sprout and thrive, Moggy. This isn't twenty years old yet."

"I can't believe it. You are imposing on me. And why on earth did you let me bring out all those pins and things? There seem to be any number of shops."

"I let you! Oh, I say, that is good! Why, Moggy, don't you remember how I remonstrated straight through your packing. Never a bit would you listen to me, and here is the result," pulling out a baggage memorandum as he spoke, and reading aloud in a lugubrious tone, "Extra weight of trunks, thirteen dollars, fifty-two cents."

"Thirteen fifty," cried Imogen with a gasp. "My gracious! why, that's nearly three pounds! Lion! Lion! you ought to have _made_ me listen."

"I'm sure I did all I could in that way. But cheer up! You'll want your pins yet. You mustn't confound this place with High Valley. That's sixteen miles off and hasn't a shop."

The discussion was brought to end by the stopping of the train. In another moment Geoff Templestowe appeared at the door.

"Hallo, Lion! glad to see you. Imogen," shaking hands warmly, "how are you? Welcome to Colorado. I'm afraid you've had a bad journey in this heat."

"It _has_ been beastly. Poor Moggy's dead beat, I'm afraid. Neither of us could sleep a wink last night for the dust and sand. Well, it's all well that ends well. We'll cool her off in the valley. How is everything going on there? Mrs. Templestowe all right, and Mrs. Page, and the children? I declare," stretching himself, "it's a blessing to get a breath of good air again. There's nothing in the world that can compare with Colorado."

A light carryall was waiting near the station, whose top was little more than a fringed awning. Into this Geoffrey helped Imogen, and proceeded to settle her wraps and bags in various seat boxes and pockets with which the carriage was cleverly fitted up. It was truly a carry-all and came and went continually between the valley and St. Helen's.

"Now," he remarked as he stuffed in the last parcel, "we will just stop long enough to get the mail and some iced tea, which I ordered as I came down, and then be off. You'll find a cold chicken in that basket, Lion. Clover was sure you'd need something, and there's no time for a regular meal if we are to get in before dark."

"Iced tea! what a queer idea!" said Imogen.

"I forgot that you were not used to it. We drink it a great deal here in summer. Would you rather have some hot? I didn't fancy that you would care for it, the day is so warm; but we'll wait and have it made, if you prefer."

"Oh, no. I won't delay you," said Imogen, rather grudgingly. She was disposed to resent the iced tea as an American innovation, but when she tried it she found herself, to her own surprise, liking it very much.

"Only, why do they call it tea," she meditated. "It's a great deal more like punch--all lemon and things." But she had to own that it was wonderfully refreshing.

The sun was blazing on the plain; but after they began to wind up the pa.s.s a cool, strong wind blew in their faces and the day seemed suddenly delightful. The unfamiliar flowers and shrubs, the strange rock forms and colors, the occasional mountain glimpses, interested Imogen so much that for a time she forgot her fatigue. Then an irresistible drowsiness seized her; the talk going on between Geoffrey Templestowe and her brother, about cows and feed and the prospect of the autumn sales, became an indistinguishable hum, and she went off into a series of sleeps broken by brief wakings, when the carryall b.u.mped, or swayed heavily from side to side on the steep inclines. From one of the soundest of these naps she was roused by her brother shaking her arm and calling,--

"Moggy, wake, wake up! We are here."

With a sharp thump of heart-beat she started into full consciousness to find the horses drawing up before a deep vine-hung porch, on which stood a group of figures which seemed to her confused senses a large party.

There was Elsie in a fresh white dress with pale green ribbons, Clarence Page, Phil Carr, little Philippa in her nurse's arms, small Geoff with his two collies at his side, and foremost of all, ready to help her down, hospitable little Clover, in lilac muslin, with a rose in her belt and a face of welcome.

"How the Americans do love dress!" was Imogen's instant thought,--an ungracious one, and quite unwarranted by the circ.u.mstances. Clover and Elsie kept themselves neat and pretty from habit and instinct, but the muslin gowns were neither new nor fashionable, they had only the merit of being fresh and becoming to their wearers.

"You poor child, how tired you must be!" cried Clover, as she a.s.sisted Imogen out of the carriage. "This is my sister, Mrs. Page. Please take her directly to her room, Elsie, while I order up some hot water. She'll be glad of that first of all. Lion, I won't take time to welcome you now. The boys must care for you while I see after your sister."