onally I like _Her Mountain Lover_, which is still in print, and for
the benefit of the possible reader of it, I will explain that the "Wagon
Wheel Gap" of the story is Ouray, and that the Grizzly Bear Trail leads
off the stage road to Red Mountain.

Our red raspberries were just coming into fruit, and a few strawberries
remained on the vines, therefore it happened that during the season we
had a short-cake with cream and sugar almost every night for
supper,--and such short-cakes!--piping hot, buttered, smothered in
berries. I fear they were not very healthful either for my mother or for
her sons, but as short-cakes were an immemorial delicacy in our home I
could not bring myself to forbid them.

Mother insisted on them all the more firmly when I told her that the
English knew nothing of short-cake or our kind of pies, and then, more
to amuse her than for any other reason, I told of a visit to my English
publisher and of my bragging about her short-cake so shamelessly that
he had finally declared: "I am coming to Chicago next year, and I shall
journey all the way to West Salem just to test your mother's
short-cake."

This made her chuckle. "Let him come," she said confidently. "We'll feed
him on it."

Notwithstanding her reaction to my jesting, my anxiety concerning her
deepened. The long periods of silence into which she fell alarmed me,
and at times, as she sat alone, I detected on her face an expression of
pain which was like that of one in despair. When I questioned her, she
could not define the cause of her distress, but I feared it came from
some weakening of her heart.

She was failing,--that was all too evident to me--failing faster than
her years warranted, and then (just as I was becoming a little
reassured) she came to me one morning, with both her hands outstretched,
as if feeling her way, her face white, her eyes wide and deep and dark
with terror. "I can't see! I can't see!" she wailed.

With a sense of impending tragedy I took her in my arms and led her to a
chair. "Don't worry, mother!" was all I could say. "It will pass soon.
Keep perfectly quiet."

Under the influence of my words she gradually lost her fear, and by the
time the doctor arrived she was quite calm and could see--a
little--though in a strange way.

In answer to his question she replied with a pitiful little smile, "Yes,
I can see you, but only in pieces. I can only see a part of your
face,--the rest of you is all black."

This