ere certainly, and you
have every comfort I'm sure, and you seem-- But it will be getting dark
before long, and I don't like the idea of leaving you young things up
here all by yourselves. Don't you ever feel a little afraid in the
evenings? I suppose there are not any wild animals--though I remember--
But there, I mustn't say anything to discourage you, since you _are_
here, and have got to stay."

"Yes, we have to stay," said Clover, as she shook hands with Mr.
Phillips, "and happily it is just what we all like best to do." She
watched the carriage for a moment or two as it bumped down the road, its
brake grinding sharply against the wheels, then she turned to the others
with a look of comically real relief.

"It seems like a bad dream! I had forgotten how Phil and I used to feel
when Mrs. Watson went on like that, and she always did go on like that.
How did we stand her?"

"Ellen seems nice," remarked Elsie,--"Poor Ellen!"

"Geoff," added Clarence, vindictively, "this must not happen again. You
and I must go to work below and shave off the hill and make it twice as
steep! It will never do to have the High Valley made easy of access to
old ladies from Boston who--"

"Who call you 'the other young man,'" put in naughty Elsie. "Never mind,
Clare. I share your feelings, but I don't think there is any risk. There
is only one of her, and I am quite certain, from the scared look with
which she alluded to our 'wild beasts,' that she never proposes to come
again."

CHAPTER VII.

THORNS AND ROSES.

"GEOFF," said Clover as they sat at dinner two days later, "couldn't we
start early when we go in to-morrow to meet Rose, and have the morning
at St. Helen's? There are quite a lot of little errands to be done, and
it's a long time since we saw Poppy or the Hopes."

"Just as early as you like," replied her husband. "It's a free day, and
I am quite at your service."

So they breakfasted at a quarter before six, and by a quarter past were
on their way to St. Helen's, passing, as Clover remarked, through three
zones of temperature; for it was crisply cold when they set out,
temperately cool at the lower end of the Ute Pass, and blazing hot on
the sandy plain.

"We certainly do get a lot of climate for our money out here," observed
Geoff.

They reached the town a little before ten, and went first of all to see
Mrs. Marsh, for whom Clover had brought a basket of fresh eggs. She
never entered that house without be