strangeness--of something like terror smote her. She fought the
homesickness down resolutely; everything would seem brighter to-
morrow, when the morning and the sunshine came again.

There was a brown and red carpet in the oblong of the room, and a
brown bureau, and a wide iron bed with a limp spread, and a
peeling brown washstand with a pitcher and basin. The boy lighted
a flare of electric lights which made the chocolate and gold
wallpaper look like one pattern in the light and another in the
shadow. A man laughed in the adjoining room; the voice seemed very
near.

Cherry had never been in a hotel of this sort before; she learned
later that El Nido was extremely proud of it, with its rattling
elevator and its dining room on the "American Plan." It seemed to
her cheap and horrible; she did not want to stay in this room, and
Martin, tipping the boy and asking for ice-water, seemed somehow a
part of this new strangeness and crudeness. She began to be afraid
that he would think she was silly, presently, if she said her
prayers as usual.

In the morning Martin hired a phaeton, and they drove out to the
mine. It had rained in the night, and there were pools of water on
the soft dirt road, but the sky was high and blue, and the air
tingled with sweetness and freshness after the shower. Cherry had
had a good breakfast, and was wearing a new gown; they stopped
another phaeton on the long, pleasant drive and Martin said to the
fat man in it:

"Mr. Bates, I want to make you acquainted with my wife!"