drier climate, and, preferably, a higher altitude. Fortunately,
your heart is good, or I should have to keep you at sea level; that is,
I should have had to sacrifice your lungs for your heart." The doctor
spoke as though the sacrifice would have been all his, after the manner
of a specialist. "As it is, I am convinced that the conditions your
health demands are to be found in. . ." He named the former cow-town
from which Irene's fateful automobile journey had had its start, and
the young woman, who was present with her mother, felt herself go
suddenly pale with the thought of a great prospect.

"Oh, I could never live there," Mrs. Hardy protested. "It is so crude.
Cow _punchers_, you know, and all that sort of thing."

The specialist smiled. "You will probably not find it so crude,
although I daresay some of its customs may jar on you," he remarked,
dryly. "Still, I would recommend you to take your best gowns along.
And it is not a case of not being able to live there. It is a case of
not being able to live here. If you take my advice you should die of
old age, so far, at least, as your present ailment is concerned. If
you don't"--and he dropped his voice to just the correct note of
gravity, which pleased Mrs. Hardy very much--"if you don't, I can't
promise you a year."

Confronted with such an alternative, the good lady had no option but to
suppress her repugnance toward cow punchers. Irene had expected
opposition born of a more subtle reason, but it soon became evident
that so deeply was her mother concerned with her own affairs that she
had quite failed to associate the proposed change with any possibility
of a re-opening of Irene's affair with the young rancher. It was years
since they had discussed him, and the probability was that, although
the incident remained in the back of Mrs. Hardy's memory, even his name
had been forgotten.

Arrangements for the journey were made with the despatch which
characterized Mrs. Hardy. She was a stickler for precedent; any
departure from the beaten paths was in her decalogue the unpardonable
sin, but when she had arrived at a decision she was no trifler. She
accepted the situation with the resignation which she deemed to be
correct under such circumstances, but the boundless prairies were to
her so much desolation and ugliness. It was apparent that dwellers in
the little four-cornered houses of the plains must be sadly lacking in
any sense of the artistic, and