domestic problem there had appeared, in a certain churchly periodical, a
carefully worded advertisement for a governess, and the subsequent
business of references, salary, and information to be imparted and
received proving eminently satisfactory, Mary had finally received a
tearful permission from her aunts to depart for some place in Wyoming, the
name of which was not even to be found on the map. She was to consider
herself quite one of the family, and the compensation was to be fifty
dollars a month. Archie would now be able to go to "The University."

As the day wore on the sage-brush became scarcer and grayer, there were
fewer flowering cacti, and the great white patches of alkali grew more and
more frequent. In the distance there was a riot of rainbow tints—violet,
pink, and pale orange. It seemed inconceivable that such barrenness could
produce such wealth of color; nothing could have been more beautiful—not
even the changing colors on a pigeon’s neck—than the coppery iridescence,
shading to cobalt and blue on some of the buttes.

Night had fallen before they made the first break in their journey. The
low, beetle-browed cabin that faced them in the wilderness carried in its
rude completeness a hint of the prestidigitateur’s art—a world of
desolation, and behold a log cabin with smoke issuing from the chimney and
curtains at the windows! The interior was unplastered, but this
shortcoming was surmounted by tacking cheesecloth neatly over the logs, a
device at once simple and strategic, as in the lamplight the effect was
that of plaster. Miss Carmichael, suddenly released from the actual
rumbling of the stage, felt its confused motion the more strongly in
imagination, and hardly knew whether she was eating canned tomatoes,
served uncooked directly from the tin, fried steak, black coffee, and soda
biscuit, in company with the fat lady, the stage-driver, and the woman who
kept the road ranch, or if it was all some Alice in Wonderland delusion.