“Oh, Roy. Father is dead. Read what Tom has written. I can’t,” Fanny said, as she glanced at the letter and then passed it to Roy, who read: “Stockton, June — 18— Mrs. Mason, Dear Madam: “It is my painful duty to inform you that your father is dead. He has been failing ever since Inez died, but did not wish you to know it, as it might mar the pleasure of your wedding trip. He was always thinking of you and Inez. He was very ill when your last letter came, but it pleased him to know that you wanted him, and Mr. Taylor, too. If he had lived and been able, I think he would have gone to Ridgefield and taken care of the poor old couple. His death occurred three days after the receipt of your letter, which he kept under his pillow with Inez’s watch, which you are to have. “I know he died a good man. I wish I were half as good. He talked a great deal of you, and once or twice spoke of your mother. He said, ‘Tell Helen I am sorry for any pain I caused her, and that I always think of her as she was that summer at the Prospect House.’ “We buried him by the side of Inez and Anita, and crowds attended his funeral. Now, I am alone, with only Nero left of all which once made my life so happy.” Uncle Zach shed floods of tears when Fanny read this letter to him. “Mark dead and lyin’ away off there among the mountains and the robbers,” he said. “They or’to have brought him here and buried him with his kin. I’d of given him a big monument. Yes, marm, I would. I liked Mark, if he did alter his name, and I feel as if I had lost a son, don’t you?” He was looking at Roy, who did not feel as if bereft of a son, and not much as if he had lost a father, but he was very sorry for Fanny. Her grief was genuine. She had built many castles in the future when her father would come to her and these were all swept away. “Do you think I should wear black?” she asked, “and that father ought to be brought east and buried here? Inez and Anita must come if he does.” Roy shivered, as he thought of the three coffins landed at the station and himself superintending their interment in the angle of the wall near ’Tina. “No, darling,” he said, kissing Fanny’s tear stained face. “I do not want you to wear black, nor is it necessary, and it is much better for your father and Inez to be among the hills of the Yosemite where they lived than to be brought here. Sometime we will go and see the graves and I will have a suitable monument erected to their memory. “By their loving daughter and sister,” Fanny rejoined, drying the tears which were like April showers, she was so sunny and sweet.