“The girl with them seems to be a companion,” whispered Rosalie. “I tried to get that sort of a place.” “Oh, shoot!” returned Miss Hickey, trying the endurance of the gum severely. “I could get that job easy, I know, on account of my education and knowin’ my way round the way I do; but there ain’t enough freedom to it. If we’d rather go to a Swattie ball now than to sleep, we have our choice; but a companion has got to be right on the job night and day.” Rosalie looked off at the distant mountains, and then back at the nape of Miss Maynard’s pretty neck, and began to wonder if she was as lonely as herself. Apparently Mrs. Nixon addressed no one except her son, and Rosalie guessed that Miss Maynard, placed behind her employer’s cold shoulder, was in reality as far removed from her as she herself felt with regard to her neighbor. The beautiful, beautiful world! Rosalie sighed and leaned forward, the better to get the splendid sweep of vale and mountain, and suddenly caught the eyes of Robert Nixon, his arm thrown along the back of the seat as he turned to converse with his mother. Rosalie shrank back into her corner. Betsy Foster might turn around, too! CHAPTER VII THE NATIONAL PARK PERCHED on the driver’s seat, with Irving beside her, Mrs. Bruce was as near the zenith of contentment as falls to the lot of mortal. The driver himself, philosopher as he was, discovered in the first three miles that it would not be necessary for him to volunteer any information, as everything he knew would be extracted from him, down to the last dregs of supposition. “Three thousand feet of ascent in a mile, Irving! Think of it!” exclaimed Mrs. Bruce, as they neared the Hoodoo Rocks. “I’d rather think of an ascent of one thousand feet in three miles,” returned Irving. “It’s less strain on the brain.” The driver gave him an appreciative glance across Mrs. Bruce’s smart traveling hat. “Oh, is that it?” she rejoined. “Perhaps I did get it a little twisted.” Here they came in full view of the desert of gaunt, pallid trees, amid the gigantic Hoodoo Rocks. “Oh, what a dreadful scene!” exclaimed Mrs. Bruce. “Such a dreary stretch of death and desolation! Driver, why do they allow such a thing in the Park?” A hunted expression came into the driver’s eyes. He had been gradually growing more and more mechanical in his replies. Now he maintained a stony silence. “If I were here at night, alone,” continued Mrs. Bruce, “I should go straight out of my mind! I’m so temperamental I could not—I really could _not_ bear it;” and she shuddered. “Then I positively forbid your coming here alone at night,” declared Irving. “We must preserve your mind, Madama, at all costs.”