Clover Part 21

"Something tells me that you will," Mrs. Hope declared. "I feel it in my bones, and they hardly ever deceive me. My mother had the same kind; it's in the family."

"Something tells me that you must," cried Poppy, embracing Clover; "but I'm afraid it isn't bones or anything prophetic, but only the fact that I want you to so very much."

From the midst of these farewells Clover's eyes crossed the valley and sought out Mount Cheyenne.

"How differently I should be feeling," she thought, "if this were going away with no real hope of coming back! I could hardly have borne to look at you had that been the case, you dear beautiful thing; but I _am_ coming back to live close beside you always, and oh, how glad I am!"

"Is that good-by to Cheyenne?" asked Marian, catching the little wave of a hand.

"Yes, it _is_ good-by; but I have promised him that it shall soon be how-do-you-do again. Mount Cheyenne and I understand each other."

"I know; you have always had a sentimental attachment to that mountain.

Now Pike's Peak is _my_ affinity. We get on beautifully together."

"Pike's Peak indeed! I am ashamed of you."

Then the train moved away amid a flutter of handkerchiefs, but still Clover and Phil were not left to themselves; for Dr. Hope, who had a consultation in Denver, was to see them safely off in the night express, and Geoff had some real or invented business which made it necessary for him to go also.

Clover carried with her through all the three days' ride the lingering pressure of Geoff's hand, and his whispered promise to "come on soon." It made the long way seem short. But when they arrived, amid all the kisses and rejoicings, the exclamations over Phil's look of health and vigor, the girls' intense interest in all that she had seen and done, papa's warm approval of her management, her secret began to burn guiltily within her.

What _would_ they all say when they knew?

And what did they say? I think few of you will be at a loss to guess.

Life--real life as well as life in story-books--is full of such shocks and surprises. They are half happy, half unhappy; but they have to be borne.

Younger sisters, till their own turns come, are apt to take a severe view of marriage plans, and to feel that they cruelly interrupt a past order of things which, so far as they are concerned, need no improvement. And parents, who say less and understand better, suffer, perhaps, more. "To bear, to rear, to lose," is the order of family history, generally unexpected, always recurring.

But true love is not selfish. In time it accustoms itself to anything which secures happiness for its object. Dr. Carr did confide to Katy in a moment of private explosion that he wished the Great West had never been invented, and that such a prohibitory tax could be laid upon young Englishmen as to make it impossible that another one should ever be landed on our sh.o.r.es; but he had never in his life refused Clover anything upon which she had set her heart, and he saw in her eyes that her heart was very much set on this. John and Elsie scolded and cried, and then in time began to talk of their future visits to High Valley till they grew to antic.i.p.ate them, and be rather in a hurry for them to begin. Geoff's arrival completed their conversion.

"Nicer than Ned," Johnnie p.r.o.nounced him; and even Dr. Carr was forced to confess that the sons-in-law with which Fate had provided him were of a superior sort; only he wished that they didn't want to marry _his_ girls!

Phil, from first to last, was in favor of the plan, and a firm ally to the lovers. He had grown extremely Western in his ideas, and was persuaded in his mind that "this old East," as he termed it, with its puny possibilities, did not amount to much, and that as soon as he was old enough to shape his own destinies, he should return to the only section of the country worthy the attention of a young man of parts. Meanwhile, he was perfectly well again, and willing to comply with his father's desire that before he made any positive arrangements for his future, he should get a sound and thorough education.

"So you are actually going out to the wild and barbarous West, to live on a ranch, milk cows, chase the wild buffalo to its lair, and hold the tiger-cat by its favorite forelock," wrote Rose Red. "What was that you were saying only the other day about nice convenient husbands, who cruise off for 'good long times,' and leave their wives comfortably at home with their own families? And here you are planning to marry a man who, whenever he isn't galloping after cattle, will be in your pocket at home!

Oh, Clover, Clover, how inconsistent a thing is woman,--not to say girl,--and what havoc that queer deity named Cupid does make with preconceived opinions! I did think I could rely on you; but you are just as bad as the rest of us, and when a lad whistles, go off after him wherever he happens to lead, and think it the best thing possible to do so. It's a mad world, my masters; and I'm thankful that Roslein is only four and a half years old."

And Clover's answer was one line on a postal card,--

"Guilty, but recommended to mercy!"