“Do you remember the view of the Green Mountains from the window in mother’s room? I can see them now as I write you. They are beautiful, but so dressed up with trees that they don’t seem so friendly and honest as our little brown foot-hills. Oh, daddy, I do miss the mountains so, and our great big country! Last night when I tried to write you and couldn’t, I stood by the window and watched the moon come up over the hills; and I couldn’t think of anything but a poem that kept running through my head like this: To gaze on the mountains with those you love Inspires you to do right; But the hills of Vermont without those you love Are but a sorry sight! “Aunt Nan is waiting for me down-stairs. I can hear her and grandmother talking together. Oh, I wonder if they do approve of me! “Father, dear, give my love to Jim and Hannah and Mr. Weeks and Alec and William and Joe and Dick and all the Keiths, and tell them I think of them every day. Give Pedro sugar as often as you remember, won’t you?—and if the lump in the littlest collie’s throat doesn’t go away soon, please kill him, because I don’t want him to suffer. “I do love you so much, father dearest, that if I tell you any more about it, I’ll quite break my promise to myself. “Virginia. “P. S. Just think, daddy, Aunt Nan says you must come East in June to get me and visit them. She said also when we were walking that you were a fine-looking man; and I told her that you were not only that, but that you were fine all the way through, and that every one in Sheridan County knew it!—V. W. H.” And while Virginia wrote her letter to her father in the room which had been her mother’s, downstairs, in the library, her grandmother and Aunt Nan talked together. “I must admit, Nan, she isn’t nearly so wild as I expected after having been brought up in that wilderness.” “Wild, mother? She’s a dear, that’s what she is! And Wyoming isn’t a wilderness. You must remember the country has grown.” “I know, but it can hardly afford the advantages of New England. I mean in a cultural way, my dear.” Aunt Nan actually sniffed. “Maybe not, mother. I’m sick of culture! I like something more genuine. And as to good manners, I’m sure Virginia has them.” “Yes,” her mother assented. “And I must say I’m surprised after what Louise wrote as to the ranch life. Mary’s husband has done well by Virginia, I must grant that.” “Lou is too particular for any use, mother. I’ve always said so. And as for Virginia’s father, you’ve never half appreciated him!” Virginia’s grandmother felt rebuked—perhaps, a little justly. “Of course,” she said, a little deprecatingly, “there are crudities. Now as to that matter last evening with Dr. Baxter. I fear he was rather—”