We were doing something from morning till night--or rather till the next morning; and the air was like a tonic to keep us up to the work of play. Luncheons and dinners and dances were given for Di, and she was written and talked about as the "Beautiful Lady Diana O'Malley"; but, though she had proposals, nothing better offered than Captain March, whose rich aunt, Mrs. Cabot, lived in New York, and proved to be the genuine article. Consequently, we turned our attention to Washington. Washington also turned its attention to us, and made itself agreeable to Father and Diana. Place and people were both fascinating; and we had five weeks more of dinners and dances, without the result we all knew in our secret souls we had come to get. The men who wanted Di, she didn't want, and vice versa. So at length we came to the last item marked on our programme: a visit to the fashionable Alvarado Springs, close to Fort Alvarado, in Arizona, where Captain March was stationed. It was the end of March when we arrived at Alvarado, and the newspapers were thickly sprinkled with the name of the Mexican President Huerta, printed in big, black letters. A few weeks ago the name would have meant nothing to me, but I hadn't lived in vain in Washington for more than a month. If the name of a Mexican president or general who had done anything conspicuous during the past six years had been suddenly flung at my head (as in the children's game where they shout "Beast, Bird, Fish!" and you answer before the count of three), I could have told who he was, and whether the conspicuous deed had been good or bad. At Alvarado we had thought to be past invitation zone, and Father had been fearfully hoarding his resources at the expense of his friends, to hold out against high charges at a big hotel. There was said to be a very big one indeed, at the Springs, with bills to match; but at the eleventh hour one of Father's devoted band of rich widows (the widows thoughtfully provided for him by deceased financiers) took a furnished cottage there and asked us to visit her. She was an unusually nice widow, whose husband had made a fortune through inventing gollywogs with different eyes from other gollywogs. The strain had given him a weak heart, and he had died. The widow's name was Mrs. Main, and Di shamelessly christened her the "Main Chance." She certainly _was_ ours! Mrs. Main, whom we'd met in New York, dashed off to Alvarado Springs a fortnight ahead of us, in time to get acquainted through letters of introduction with the highest-up officers at Fort Alvarado, and the wives of those who had any; also to put the furnished "cottage," as she called it (there must have been fifteen or twenty rooms), in order; and the night we arrived, after our long but utterly fascinating journey, she gave a dinner in honour of Father and Diana.