hint, still less that she had never meant to give one. "The better part of
valor is discretion," she remembered; so she held her peace, though her
cheeks glowed guiltily.

At three o'clock they set forth in a light roomy carriage,--not exactly a
carryall, but of the carryall family,--with a pair of fast horses, Miss
Chase and Phil cantering happily alongside, or before or behind, just as
it happened. The sun was very hot; but there was a delicious breeze, and
the dryness and elasticity of the air made the heat easy to bear.

The way lay across and down the southern slope of the plateau on which the
town was built. Then they came to splendid fields of grain and
"afalfa,"--a cereal quite new to them, with broad, very green leaves. The
roadside was gay with flowers,--gillias and mountain balm; high pink and
purple spikes, like foxgloves, which they were told were pentstemons;
painters' brush, whose green tips seemed dipped in liquid vermilion, and
masses of the splendid wild poppies. They crossed a foaming little river;
and a sharp turn brought them into a narrower and wilder road, which ran
straight toward the mountain side. This was overhung by trees, whose shade
was grateful after the hot sun.

Narrower and narrower grew the road, more and more sharp the turns. They
were at the entrance of a deep defile, up which the road wound and wound,
following the links of the river, which they crossed and recrossed
repeatedly. Such a wonderful and perfect little river, with water clear as
air and cold as ice, flowing over a bed of smooth granite, here slipping
noiselessly down long slopes of rock like thin films of glass, there
deepening into pools of translucent blue-green like aqua-marine or beryl,
again plunging down in mimic waterfalls, a sheet of iridescent foam. The
sound of its rush and its ripple was like a laugh. Never was such happy