parasol.

"All in place and well tied down," she announced. "Nothing to fly or
catch!"

Garth pictured to himself the effect likely to be created in the
wilderness by this adorable acme of the feminine, with something between
a smile and a groan.

They walked to the post office, quaffing deep of the delicious morning
air, Garth glancing sidewise at his exuberant companion, and wondering,
like the old lady in the nursery rhyme, if this could really be he. It
was a day to make one walk a-tiptoe; the sky overhead bloomed with the
exquisite pale tints of a Northern summer's morning; and the bricks of
Oliver Avenue were washed with gold.

Natalie's face fell a little at the sight of the stage-coach; for it
had nothing in common with the imagined vehicle of romance except the
four horses; and they were but sorry beasts. In fact, it was nothing
but a clumsy, uncovered wagon, which had never been washed since it
was built; and was worn to a dull drab in a long acquaintance with the
alternating mud and dust of the trail. Behind the driver's seat was a
sort of well, for the mail bags and express packages; and behind that,
two excruciatingly narrow seats for the passengers, running lengthwise
between the rear wheels. The entrance was by a step at the tail-board.

Everything awaited the word to start. The driver, whip in hand, stood
by the front wheel surrounded by a group of idlers; and his two great
mongrel huskies, squatted on the pavement with expectant eyes on their
master. Garth helped Natalie into the body of the wagon; and, climbing
in after her, disposed her baggage with his own already in the well. The
eyes of the driver and all his satellites were promptly transferred in
wide wonder to the girl with the green wings in her hat. Garth, with a
keen sense of difficulties ahead, was indignant and uncomfortable; but
Natalie, serenely conscious that everything was in place, dropped her
hands in her lap, and chatted away, as if quite unaware of her
conspicuousness.

Garth had put Natalie in the right-hand corner of the little cockpit.
Another woman passenger was already in place opposite; and the aspect of
this lady made an additional element in his uneasiness. She, too, was
gotten up bravely according to her lights. She seemed something under
forty, tall and angular; her hair, a crass yellow, was tied with a large
girlish bow of black ribbon behind; and in her cheeks she had crudely
striven to recall the hues of youth. A