ing on to Annapolis for a day, just to
get a glimpse of Holland, and then to New York for a day and a half
with Joyce. Good old Jack! He's certainly earned his holiday. I can
hardly wait for him to come home and tell all about it."

Spreading the book out on her knees, Mary adjusted her pen and began to
write rapidly, for words always crowded to her pen-point as they did to
her tongue, with a rush.

"WARWICK HALL, September 12.

"Little did I think when I wrote that last line, that six whole
weeks would pass before I added another, or that my next entry
would be made in this beautiful old garden that I have dreamed of
so long. Little did I think I would be sitting here beside the old
sun-dial, or that such an hour could shine for me as the happy hour
when Jack came back.

"I drove into Phoenix to meet him, and I knew from the way he
waved his hat and swung off the steps before the train stopped that
he had good news, and it was! Perfectly splendid! They had made
him assistant manager of the mines, with a great big salary that
would make a change in all our fortunes. I thought it was queer
that he should bring a trunk back with him, for he went away with
only a suit-case, but I was so busy asking questions about Joyce
and Holland and everybody at The Locusts, that there wasn't time or
breath to ask about the trunk. We were half way home before he got
around to that.

"He said his first thought when they told him of his promotion
was, 'Now Mary can have her heart's desire and go away to school.'
And on the way to New York he planned it all out, how we'd give up
the Wigwam, and take a house in Lone-Rock, and he'd get some one to
help Mamma with the work, and he'd have Norman under his eye all
the time when he was out of school, and keep him out of mischief.
He's been wanting to do that ever since he went to the mines, for
there never was such a home-body. He can't bear to board.

"Nearly all of that little scrap of a visit he and Joyce had
together, those blessed children spent in getting my clothes. Joyce
has all my measurements, and they got me three dresses and a hat
and a lot of shirt-waists and gloves and fixings, all so beautiful
and stylish and New Yorkey, _and_ the fine big trunk to put them
in. There was even