The name of this amiable gentleman, Lucy learned, was Mr. Plimpton, and he was a Denver stock broker. Neither Mary nor Lucy dreamed of the truth of his relations with Sibyl Dudley. Having recurred to people and affairs in Paradise Valley, Mary chattered on like a gay little blackbird, and knew she was very bewitching, bolstered among the pillows. Her illness had taken some of the color out of her cheeks, yet they still showed a rosy tint when contrasted with the pillows, and the whiteness of the pillows emphasized the color of her eyes and hair. She asked Lucy to move the little dresser farther along the wall, that she might see herself in the mirror. She desired to get certain stubborn tangles out of her hair, she averred; but she really wanted to contemplate her own loveliness. “Mrs. Dudley puts the dresser that way for me sometimes, even when I don’t ask her to; and often I lay for hours, looking into the mirror, when she has gone out of the room. It’s like looking into the clouds, you know. You remember how we used to lie on the rocks there by the edge of the Black Cañon and look up at the clouds? We could see all kinds of things in them—men and horses, and wild animals, and just everything. When I let myself dream into the mirror that way I can see the same things there. And sometimes I try to picture what my future will be. Once I thought I saw a man’s face looking out at me, and it wasn’t Ben’s! Mrs. Dudley said I had been dreaming, and didn’t see anything, but it seemed real. I suppose I shall marry Ben, of course, just as you will marry Justin.” Lucy’s face flushed. “I don’t see why that should be a matter of course!” “So you’ve seen some one in the East who is better looking? You can’t fool me! I know! What’s his name?” “Truly I haven’t seen any one in the East who is better looking. I wasn’t thinking of anything of the kind.” “Then he is still the best looking, is he? If you still think so, it’s a sure sign that you’ll marry him. That’s why I think I shall marry Ben. I haven’t seen any one in Denver I like as well as Ben, or who is as good looking; and one has a chance to see a good many men in a city like this.” “Has Ben been to call on you?” “Oh, yes; he was here only last week. When I first came up here I couldn’t get him to call, though I was told I might invite him. But when he got started he kept coming and coming, and now he comes almost too often. Mrs. Dudley has been very kind and good to him, and sometimes I’m almost jealous, thinking he likes her almost as much as he does me. I should be truly jealous, I think, if I didn’t know about Mr. Plimpton.” She studied her mirrored reflection, wondering if it could be possible for Ben to find Mrs. Dudley, who was so much older and had already been married, more charming than herself. It was so unpleasant a thought that she frowned; and then, remembering that frowns will spoil even the smoothest forehead, she drove the frown away, and began to talk again.