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Page 55
But when he finally appeared he seemed much the same as usual. After all,
she reflected, it has only been a boyish impulse; he has already got over
it, or not meant all he said.
In this she did Clarence an injustice. He had been very much in earnest
when he spoke; and it showed the good stuff which was in him and his real
regard for Clover that he should be making so manly a struggle with his
disappointment and pain. His life had been a lonely one in Colorado; he
could not afford to quarrel with his favorite cousin, and with him, as
with other lovers, there may have been, besides, some lurking hope that
she might yet change her mind. But perhaps Clover in a measure was right
in her conviction that Clarence was still too young and undeveloped to
have things go very deep with him. He seemed to her in many ways as boyish
and as undisciplined as Phil.
With early September the summering of the Ute Park came to a close. The
cold begins early at that elevation, and light frosts and red leaves
warned the dwellers in tents and cabins to flee.
Clover made her preparations for departure with real reluctance. She had
grown very fond of the place; but Phil was perfectly himself again, and
there seemed no reason for their staying longer.
So back to St. Helen's they went and to Mrs. Marsh, who, in reply to
Clover's letter, had written that she must make room for them somehow,
though for the life of her she couldn't say how. It proved to be in two
small back rooms. An irruption of Eastern invalids had filled the house to
overflowing, and new faces met them at every turn. Two or three of the
last summer's inmates had died during their stay,--one of them the very
sick man whose room Mrs. Watson had coveted. His death took place "as if
on purpose," she told Clover, the very week after her removal to the
Shoshone.
Mrs. Watson herself was preparing for return to the East. "I've seen the
West now," she said,--"all I want to see; and I'm quite ready to go back
to my own part of the country. Ellen writes that she thinks I'd better
start for home so as to get settled before the cold--And it's so cold here
that I can't realize that they're still in the middle of peaches at home.
Ellen always spices a great--They're better than preserves; and as for the
canned ones, why, peaches and water is what I call them. Well--my dear--"
(Distance lends enchantment, and Clover had become "My dear" again.) "I'm
glad I could come out and help you along; and now that you know so many
people here, you won't need me so much as you did at first. I shall tell
Mrs. Perkins to write to Mrs. Hall to tell your father how well your
brother is looking, and I know he'll be--And here's a little handkerchief
for a keepsake."
It was a pretty handkerchief, of pale yellow silk with embroidered
corners, and Clover kissed the old lady as she thanked her, and they
parted good friends. But their intercourse had led her to make certain
firm resolutions.
"I will try to keep my mind clear and my talk clear; to learn what I want
and what I have a right to want and what I mean to say, so as not to
puzzle and worry people when I grow old, by being vague and helpless and
fussy," she reflected. "I suppose if I don't form the habit now, I sha'n't
be able to then, and it would be dreadful to end by being like poor Mrs.
Watson."
Altogether, Mrs. Marsh's house had lost its homelike character; and it was
not strange that under the circumstances Phil should flag a little. He was
not ill, but he was out of sorts and dismal, and disposed to consider the
presence of so many strangers as a personal wrong. Clover felt that it was
not a good atmosphere for him, and anxiously revolved in her mind what was
best to do. The Shoshone was much too expensive; good boarding-houses in
St. Helen's were few and far between, and all of them shared in a still
greater degree the disadvantages which had made themselves felt at Mrs.
Marsh's.
The solution to her puzzle came--as solutions often do--unexpectedly. She
was walking down Piute Street on her way to call on Alice Blanchard, when
her attention was attracted to a small, shut-up house, on which was a
sign: "No. 13. To Let, Furnished." The sign was not printed, but written
on a half-sheet of foolscap, which was what led Clover to notice it.
She studied the house a while, then opened the gate, and went in. Two or
three steps led to a little piazza. She seated herself on the top step,
and tried to peep in at the closed blinds of the nearest window.
While she was doing so, a woman with a shawl over her head came hastily
down a narrow side street or alley, and approached her.
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