“When do you go to the Yosemite? Do you know I have a queer feeling about that trip and am half inclined to take it with you. I have just seen a chap who two years ago last summer was waylaid by robbers. He says it’s not an uncommon thing for the stage to be stopped. His experience was a bad one. Two ladies fainted from sheer fright and one of them was robbed while unconscious. A strange feature of this robbery was that the watch taken from the fainting woman and which had her name engraved upon it was sent to her by mail to the hotel where she was stopping. Most of the money taken was also returned to the owners who could least afford to lose it. A queer thing for marauders to do, and shows that they are habitues of the neighborhood and have facilities for learning the names and position of those whom they plunder. I hope you will not meet with an adventure of this kind.” On the morning when Fanny received this letter she was sitting by the window of one of the parlors in the hotel, reading it a second time, and feeling a little nervous with regard to the stage robberies of which she had heard something in San Francisco. A Firemen’s Parade was passing, with all the paraphernalia of bands and hose carts and boys and a crowd generally, but she paid no attention to it until a clear, musical voice, with a slight accent, said to her, “Pretty, isn’t it, Miss Prescott; and isn’t father grand in his new suit? That’s he,—the tall man who bowed to me when I kissed my hand to him. He is foreman of one of the companies.” Surprised at being so familiarly addressed by a stranger, Fanny looked up and saw standing by the next window a young girl whom she had seen several times in the halls and corridors and wondered who she was. She was tall and well proportioned. Her features were regular, her eyes dark and lustrous and veiled under very long lashes and surmounted by heavy brows which made them seem darker than they were. Her complexion was a rich olive, telling of a southern sun which must have warmed the blood of one or both of her parents. There was nothing impertinent in her manner. It was simply friendly, and Fanny, who was longing for some young person to speak to, answered pleasantly, “How did you know my name?” “Oh, everybody knows that,” the girl replied, “and if they didn’t they have only to look on the register. I saw you the day you came and have watched you ever since when I had a chance and I wanted to speak to you so badly. I don’t know why, only I did. It seemed to me I should like you, and I know so few young girls. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken to you, but you don’t mind, do you?”