"I'll tell you what I will do, Kate," she said with more animation than she had shown for weeks. "I'll take Mr. Morehouse's very latest advice, and run up north to Lake Tahoe, to stay till my new house is born. Then, instead of your going to your Tim, he must come to you; and I'll give you a wedding--oh, a beautiful wedding, with a white silk dress and a veil and orange blossoms, and a cake big enough to last you the rest of your life. You're not to make any objections, because I shouldn't be happy to have you stay with me now that Tim's ready, and you know the idea always was for you to go when I'd reached my farthest point north and nearest to Oregon. Besides, it will do me good to plan for a wedding. And I mean to give you your trousseau. You shall get the things here in San Francisco before we start for Tahoe." So that was why one evening Nick read in a San Francisco paper that "Mrs. May, who has been staying at the Fairmont Hotel for several weeks, left last night for Lake Tahoe, where she has engaged rooms at the famous Tahoe Tavern, and may remain for some time." Afterward, when he sent the paper on to Sara Wilkins, as he did send papers now, with parcels of books and magazines, she too noticed the paragraph. "His star's gone as far north and as far from him as she can possibly go and be in California," thought the school-teacher. And because Nick was right, and her good little face hid a heart that was still better, she was not glad, but very, very sorry. When Kate was married to her good-looking Irishman, and the little excitement of the wedding was over, Angela began to feel rather desolate. There were a great many pleasant people at the tavern who would have been kind to the stranger if she had let them be kind, but they were all so merry and had so many intimate interests of their own that their goodness to her seemed only to emphasize her loneliness. Kate had insisted on "lending" her Timmy in fact, the bride and bridegroom both insisted, for there was no doubt in their minds that the black cat had brought them good fortune. Now they had all the fortune they wanted, to "go on with," and as poor, pretty Mrs. May seemed "a bit down on her luck," they would leave her Timmy to bring it back again. And really the topaz-eyed creature, in its becoming jade collar--a gift from Nick Hilliard--was often a comfort to Angela, curled up in her lap and purring cosily under her book as she read. It seemed curiously fond of her, even fonder than of Kate, and had "taken to" her from the first. Angela had travelled through a region of snowsheds to reach the lake in the heart of the Sierra Nevada, and the scenery was as different from any she had met in California as was her mood from the mood of the south. At Tahoe she was a mile above sea-level, and ringed in by higher mountains which had not lost their dazzling crowns of snow.