“You don’t have to be a witch to see the smoke coming out of the chimney.” A faint reek of smoke curled up from the cottage roof into the evening air. The Colonel looked at her with a sheepish side-glance. She returned it, smiling in mischievous triumph. “I’m afraid we’re not both witches,” she said saucily. The rest over, they continued their descent by a wider path in parts of which they walked side by side, talking together sometimes, or June talking, for she was very loquacious now, while her companion listened. At the end of a description of their life in Virginia City he said, “How long is it since you’ve been in San Francisco? Years, isn’t it?” “Oh, years and years. I was born there, but we left when I was a child.” “It must have been a prodigious length of time ago--in the glacial period, you might say. Sometime you and Rosamund must come down there and visit me. I’ll find a place for you to stay, and take good care of you. Would you like it?” “Oh, Colonel Parrish!” Words failed her. The path was wide and she was walking beside him. He saw her eyes shine. “I’d see to it that you’d have a good time. Lots of parties and first-rate partners. You’d never sit along the wall there. The fellows would be just breaking their necks to dance with you. And theaters--you like theaters, don’t you?” “Theaters!” she fairly gasped. “I saw _Mazeppa_ in Virginia, and it was--oh, I haven’t got the words! It was something wonderful.” “Well, we’ll see ’em all. Better forty times than you saw in Virginia, and every night if you want. It’ll be just as good a time as San Francisco and the Colonel can give two girls like you and Rosamund.” He looked down at her, smiling. She returned the look and said: “Why are you so good to us? I don’t understand it!” “Don’t try to. Never exert your brain in needless ways. That’s a fundamental law for the preservation of health. In this particular case I’d be good to myself. You don’t know what it would be for me to have two nice girls to take around. I’m a lonely old devil, you know.” “Are you?” she said with a note of somewhat pensive incredulity. “You’ve never been married, have you?” “Nup,” said the Colonel. “You’ll have to look upon us as your daughters,” she continued, “or perhaps your nieces.” The path was narrow and she looked into his face with the glance of demure coquetry he was beginning to know and watch for. “Which would you prefer?” “Daughters,” he said gruffly, looking into the bushes. “But we’re already provided with a father,” she replied. “And it would be such a pity to waste you. Wouldn’t you care to take the position of uncle? That’s vacant.” “All right, uncle--Uncle Jim.” “Uncle Jim,” she repeated thoughtfully. “It seems funny to come into possession of your first uncle when you’re twenty years old.” There was a bend in the path and the bushes grew almost across it. She suddenly quickened her speed, passed him, and ran on before.