part of the year to me, Virginia," he finished hesitatingly, "was June
when you came back, and I found you weren't a young lady after all. I was
some glad, I tell you!"

Virginia's gray eyes looked at the mountains, swept the golden prairie
stretches, and lingered for a long moment on the cottonwoods which
bordered Elk Creek before they came back to Donald's blue ones.

"I'm glad, too," she said simply.

Pedro and MacDuff sniffed the September air and gloried in it. They were
impatient for a wild run across the brow of the hills, and wondered why
their riders chose to look so long at the mountains on such an afternoon
as this. If they sat so silently much longer, there would be no time to
make the mesa, to gallop across its wide surface, and at last, perhaps, to
have supper among the sagebrush with Robert Bruce. They felt somewhat
encouraged when Virginia began to speak.

"I've been trying to decide the very loveliest thing of all the year," she
said. "I mean from September to June. I don't know whether 'twas the
Vigilantes or Miss Wallace or Grandmother Webster, but I'm almost sure
'twas Grandmother Webster learning to love Father. The others were joys
for me, but that was one for all of us. Of course we know the loveliest
thing of this summer. Everything's been perfect, but Aunt Nan and Malcolm
the most perfect of all. Yesterday, when Grandmother Webster's letter
came, I just cried for joy, it was so lovely!

"I--I couldn't help comparing it with the one she wrote Mother about
Father," she continued, a little break in her voice. "I found
it--afterward--in Mother's things. She didn't understand at all then. I
guess it takes some people a long time to understand things. But I'm going
to try to forget that because Grandmother Webster knows now just how
splendid Father is. Besides," she finished thoughtfully, "it's going to be
very hard for Grandmother to give Aunt Nan up. I guess we can't even
imagine how hard it's going to be."

"Of course we can't I think it's fine of her to take it the way she does.
What relation will that make you and me?" he finished practically.

"Priscilla and I figured it all out. You're no relation at all--just my
uncle's brother. Makes you sound about forty-five, doesn't it?"

"It doesn't sound exactly young. When do you suppose it will happen?"

"Aunt Nan doesn't know. Malcolm says Christmas, but she says no, she must
have a year with Grandmother. So I think it will be in June--just af