She seemed glad to be there; she wandered about and looked at her mother's things; she opened her mother's secretary and used it; she sat in her mother's easy-chair, and read her books. There was no jarring element at hand; Genevieve, beneficent, much admired, and well off, had been living for two years in St. Louis; her North Carolina cottage was now occupied by Mrs. Kip. Chase had the inspiration of sending for Kentucky Belle, and after a while Ruth began to ride. This did her more good than anything else; every day she was out for hours among the mountains with her husband, and often with the additional escort of Malachi Hill. One morning they made an expedition to the wild gorge where the squirrel had received his freedom two years before; Ruth dismounted, and walked about under the trees, looking up into the foliage. "He's booming; he's got what _he_ likes," said Chase--"your Robert the Squirrel; or Robert the Devil, as Dolly called him." "Oh, I don't want him back," Ruth answered; "I am glad he is free. Every one ought to be free," she went on, musingly, as though stating a new truth which she had just discovered. "I came out nearly every week, Mrs. Chase, during the first six months, with nuts for him," said Malachi, comfortingly. "I used to bring at least a quart, and I put them in a particular place. Well--they were always gone." As they came down a flank of the mountain overlooking the village, Chase surveyed the valley with critical eyes. "If we really decide to take this thing up at last--Nick and Richard Willoughby, and myself, and one or two more--my own idea would be to have a grand combine of all the advantages possible," he began. "In the United States we don't do this thing up half so completely as they do abroad. Over there, if they have mountains--as in Switzerland, for instance--they don't trust to that alone, they don't leave people to sit and stare at 'em all day; they add other attractions. They have boys with horns, where there happen to be echoes; they illuminate the waterfalls; girls dressed up in costumes milk cows in arbors; and men with flowers and other things stuck in their hats, yodel and sing. All sorts of carved things, too, are constantly offered for sale, such as salad-forks, paper-cutters, and cuckoo clocks. Then, if it isn't mountains, but springs, they always have the very best music they can get, to make the water go down. It would be a smart thing to have the sulphur near here brought into town in pipes to a sort of park, where we could have a casino with a hall for dancing, and a restaurant where you could always get a first-class meal. And, outside, a stand for the band. And then in the park there ought to be, without fail, long rows of bright little stores for the ladies--like those at Baden-Baden, Ruthie? No large articles sold, but a great variety of small things. Ladies always like that; they can drink the water, listen to the music, and yet go shopping too, and buy all sorts