here
were iris and brown lilies, and a dense undergrowth of manzanita and
hazelnut bushes, wild currant and wild lilac trees.

The big room that Julia entered first was dim with pleasant twilight,
and full of the sweet odours of a dying wood fire. It had nothing of
distinction in it: a few shabby chairs, an old square piano, an
unpainted floor crossed here and there by rugs, books in cases and out
of them, candlesticks along the brick mantel, a green-shaded student's
lamp on a long table, and several wide windows, dim and opaque now in
the fast-gathering darkness, but usually framing each a picture of
matchless mountain scenery.

A door at one side of the fireplace led into a tiny kitchen whose
windows looked out into oak branches; and another door, on the other
side, gave access to a little cement-floored bathroom with a shower, and
two small bedrooms, each with two beds built in tiers like bunks. This
was Richie's whole domain, and whether it was really saturated with the
care-free atmosphere of childhood, and fragrant with the good breath of
the countryside all about it, or whether Julia only imagined it to be
so, she found it perfect, and was never so happy in these days as when
she and Anna were there. She was always busy, and satisfied in her work,
but there were needs of heart and mind that her own people could not
meet, and when these rose strong within her she found no company as
bracing and as welcome as Richard's.

"No Aunt Sanna?" said she cheerfully, when she had taken off her hat and
the small girl's, and was in her favourite chair by the fire.

"No, darn it!" said Richie, struggling with a refractory lamp wick.

"Oh, don't be so blue, Rich! She'll be here on the seven."

"No, she won't--she said the four--I expected to find her here," Richie
said, settling the glass chimney into place, as the light crept round
the wick. A little odour of hot kerosene floated on the air, and was
lost in other odours from the kitchen, where a Chinese boy was padding
about in the poor light of one lamp. He began to come and go, setting
the table, the ecstatic Anna at his heels. Whenever the outer door was
opened, a cool rush of sweet country air came in. Richie began to stamp
back and forth with great logs for the fireplace.

"Wonderful what millions of miles away from every one we seem, Rich!"
Julia said contentedly. "Was there ever anything like the quiet of this
mountain?"

"I'm terribly sorry about Aunt Sanna,"