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Page 32
Clover could not help laughing. "I wish that people wouldn't persist in
calling Mrs. Watson my old lady," she thought.
Mrs. Marsh, a pleasant-looking person, came to meet them as they entered.
She showed Clover and Phil their rooms, which had been secured for them,
and then carried Mrs. Watson off to look at another which she could have
if she liked.
The rooms were on the third floor. A big front one for Phil, with a sunny
south window and two others looking towards the west and the mountains,
and, opening from it, a smaller room for Clover.
"Your brother ought to live in fresh air both in doors and out," said Dr.
Hope; "and I thought this large room would answer as a sort of sitting
place for both of you."
"It's ever so nice; and we are both more obliged to you than we can say,"
replied Clover, holding out her hand as the doctor rose to go. He gave a
pleased little laugh as he shook it.
"That's all right," he said. "I owe your father's children any good turn
in my power, for he was a good friend to me when I was a poor boy just
beginning, and needed friends. That's my house with the red roof, Miss
Clover. You see how near it is; and please remember that besides the care
of this boy here, I'm in charge of you too, and have the inside track of
the rest of the friends you are going to make in Colorado. I expect to be
called on whenever you want anything, or feel lonesome, or are at a loss
in any way. My wife is coming to see you as soon as you have had your
dinner and got settled a little. She sent those to you," indicating a vase
on the table, filled with flowers. They were of a sort which Clover had
never seen before,--deep cup-shaped blossoms of beautiful pale purple and
white.
"Oh, what are they?" she called after the doctor.
"Anemones," he answered, and was gone.
"What a dear, nice, kind man!" cried Clover. "Isn't it delightful to have
a friend right off who knows papa, and does things for us because we are
papa's children? You like him, don't you, Phil; and don't you like your
room?"
"Yes; only it doesn't seem fair that I should have the largest."
"Oh, yes; it is perfectly fair. I never shall want to be in mine except
when I am dressing or asleep. I shall sit here with you all the time; and
isn't it lovely that we have those enchanting mountains just before our
eyes? I never saw anything in my life that I liked so much as I do that
one."
It was Cheyenne Mountain at which she pointed, the last of the chain, and
set a little apart, as it were, from the others. There is as much
difference between mountains as between people, as mountain-lovers know,
and like people they present characters and individualities of their own.
The noble lines of Mount Cheyenne are full of a strange dignity; but it is
dignity mixed with an indefinable charm. The canyons nestle about its
base, as children at a parent's knee; its cedar forests clothe it like
drapery; it lifts its head to the dawn and the sunset; and the sun seems
to love it best of all, and lies longer on it than on the other peaks.
Clover did not analyze her impressions, but she fell in love with it at
first sight, and loved it better and better all the time that she stayed
at St. Helen's. "Dr. Hope and Mount Cheyenne were our first friends in the
place," she used to say in after-days.
"How nice it is to be by ourselves!" said Phil, as he lay comfortably on
the sofa watching Clover unpack. "I get so tired of being all the time
with people. Dear me! the room looks quite homelike already."
Clover had spread a pretty towel over the bare table, laid some books and
her writing-case upon it, and was now pinning up a photograph over the
mantel-piece.
"We'll make it nice by-and-by," she said cheerfully; "and now that I've
tidied up a little, I think I'll go and see what has become of Mrs.
Watson. She'll think I have quite forgotten her. You'll lie quiet and rest
till dinner, won't you?"
"Yes," said Phil, who looked very sleepy; "I'm all right for an hour to
come. Don't hurry back if the ancient female wants you."
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