sfield to whom I have referred was the young minister
of my church, and also the son of my dearest friend. Mrs. Mansfield
had been my playmate and schoolmate in childhood, my confidante in
girlhood, and when we were matrons and neighbors our early affection
had settled into the deep, enduring friendship of later life. She had
married our minister and was an exemplary wife and mother. Our
children were schoolmates also, and her only son Chester was a boy of
unusual promise. He distinguished himself in school and college, and,
finishing his course just before his father's death, was unanimously
called to fill the vacant pulpit. Here his eloquence and spirituality
fully justified the promise of his youth, and he became almost the
idol of his congregation. He married a lovely girl, and life seemed to
hold for him the highest blessings that man can dream of.

The sorrow, then, of his sudden and peculiarly sad death cannot be
described. Not only his family and church, but the whole town, mourned
as if for a brother, and the church could not hold the concourse that
followed his body to the grave.

The mothers and sisters and the frail young wife were almost crushed
by the blow, and even after the lapse of nearly five years it was
fresh enough in my heart to make Charlie Reynolds' face bring back
those days of mourning with sad reality. I formed then the hope,
foolish, perhaps, that if this young man should be found to be a
relative of the dead man and reclaimed, he might in some measure
atone to those bereaved ones for their loss. With this idea, I
improved every opportunity to cultivate Charlie Reynolds' acquaintance
and win his good opinion, although I was much embarrassed by the
laughing eyes that Howard never failed to turn upon me in my
efforts at conversation.

They were efforts, indeed; for if I had come from a foreign land, and
spoken an unknown language, I could hardly have had more difficulty in
finding a topic of common interest or in making myself intelligible,
for old-fashioned English seemed to be less understood than any others
of the numerous tongues I heard.

I could hear from my window, Mexicans, Chinamen, Indians, Frenchmen,
and Spaniards chatting in the plaza, until I could almost guess what
they said, but the vernacular of the American miner and rancher is
beyond comprehension.

There are about four topics discussed at the Eldorado tables, chief of
all, the mines, and to this day I cannot talk cohere