Clover pacified her as well as she could, by assurances that it was not a
dinner-party, and they were only asked to meet one girl whom Mrs. Hope
wanted her to know.

"If it were a large affair, I am sure you would have been asked too," she
said, and so left her "old woman of the sea" partly consoled.

It was the most lovely evening possible, as Clover and Phil walked down
the street toward Dr. Hope's. Soft shadows lay over the lower spurs of the
ranges. The canyons looked black and deep, but the peaks still glittered
in rosy light. The mesa was in shadow, but the nearer plain lay in full
sunshine, hot and yellow, and the west wind was full of mountain
fragrance.

Phil gave little skips as he went along. Already he seemed like a
different boy. All the droop and languor had gone, and given place to an
exhilaration which half frightened Clover, who had constant trouble in
keeping him from doing things which she knew to be imprudent. Dr. Hope had
warned her that invalids often harmed themselves by over-exertion under
the first stimulus of the high air.

"Why, how queer!" she exclaimed, stopping suddenly before one of the
pretty places just above Mrs. Marsh's boarding-house.

"What?"

"Don't you see? That yard! When we came by here yesterday it was all green
grass and rose-bushes, and girls were playing croquet; and now, look, it's
a pond!"