It was a model of neatness and order and showed many touches of a woman’s dainty hand and, what surprised her a little, had in it some articles of furniture more expensive than she expected to find among the mountains. The wide door opened upon a piazza which commanded a magnificent view of the mountains and the valley below. A honeysuckle was trained upon the rustic pillars and a bowl of roses and ferns was standing upon a round table near which were two or three chairs. This was evidently the living place of the family and Fanny sat down in one of the chairs to wait for Inez who soon came in flushed and bright and eager to talk. “Yes, we sit here a great deal,” she said, in answer to a question from Fanny. “Father likes a piazza; it reminds him of his youth, he says, but he looks so sorry when I ask him about his youth that I don’t often do it, and I know very little of his boyhood. I asked him once if I had any relatives. ‘No’ he said, so short that I have never referred to them again. You must have a great many.” “Very few,” Fanny said, and Inez continued: “Has your father been dead long?” There was a moment’s hesitancy before Fanny replied: “Judge Prescott, who died last year, was my step-father, whose name I took when mother married him. She was a Miss Tracy, and my own father was Mr. Mark Hilton. He died in the mines of Montana when I was a baby. I do not remember him.” “I am so sorry for you,” Inez said. “I wish you could remember him a little. You must resemble him, as you do not look like your mother.” Fanny drew a long breath, and, with a thought of ’Tina, answered, “I am like one of my grandmothers.” Slight as was her knowledge of the world Inez’s womanly instinct told her that Fanny did not care to discuss her family and she changed the conversation. “I am going to get dinner now,” she said. “Would you like to see me? I don’t suppose you ever did a stroke of work in your life?” “I never have,—more’s the pity,” Fanny said, as she followed Inez to the kitchen and watched her with the greatest interest, offering to help her. “Not now,” Inez said. “You may wipe the dishes when dinner is over, and then we can have more time to visit.” Fanny wiped the dishes after the dinner, in which the huckleberry pie had a conspicuous place, and left its marks on her mouth and teeth. When the work was done there was a ramble among the hills, a visit to Anita’s grave, which was covered with flowers and then, as the afternoon began to wane, the two girls sat down upon the piazza and watched the shadows deepening in the valley and the colors changing on the mountains from rosy tints to violet hues, while the sound of the waterfalls in the distance became more distinct as night drew on.