He reined his horse Monte beside her, and upon her cheek she felt his kiss. “You are not the only mind-reader,” said he, very tenderly. And at this she clung to him, and laid her head upon his breast. “I had been thinking,” he went on, “that the way our marriage is to be was the most beautiful way.” “It is the most beautiful,” she murmured. He slowly spoke out his thought, as if she had not said this. “No folks to stare, no fuss, no jokes and ribbons and best bonnets, no public eye nor talkin’ of tongues when most yu’ want to hear nothing and say nothing.” She answered by holding him closer. “Just the bishop of Wyoming to join us, and not even him after we’re once joined. I did think that would be ahead of all ways to get married I have seen.” He paused again, and she made no rejoinder. “But we have left out your mother.” She looked in his face with quick astonishment. It was as if his spirit had heard the cry of her spirit. “That is nowhere near right,” he said. “That is wrong.” “She could never have come here,” said the girl. “We should have gone there. I don’t know how I can ask her to forgive me.” “But it was not you!” cried Molly. “Yes. Because I did not object. I did not tell you we must go to her. I missed the point, thinking so much about my own feelings. For you see--and I’ve never said this to you until now--your mother did hurt me. When you said you would have me after my years of waiting, and I wrote her that letter telling her all about myself, and how my family was not like yours, and--and--all the rest I told her, why you see it hurt me never to get a word back from her except just messages through you. For I had talked to her about my hopes and my failings. I had said more than ever I’ve said to you, because she was your mother. I wanted her to forgive me, if she could, and feel that maybe I could take good care of you after all. For it was bad enough to have her daughter quit her home to teach school out hyeh on Bear Creek. Bad enough without havin’ me to come along and make it worse. I have missed the point in thinking of my own feelings.” “But it’s not your doing!” repeated Molly. With his deep delicacy he had put the whole matter as a hardship to her mother alone. He had saved her any pain of confession or denial. “Yes, it is my doing,” he now said. “Shall we give it up?” “Give what--?” She did not understand. “Why, the order we’ve got it fixed in. Plans are--well, they’re no more than plans. I hate the notion of changing, but I hate hurting your mother more. Or, anyway, I OUGHT to hate it more. So we can shift, if yu’ say so. It’s not too late.” “Shift?” she faltered. “I mean, we can go to your home now. We can start by the stage to-night. Your mother can see us married. We can come back and finish in the mountains instead of beginning in them. It’ll be just merely shifting, yu’ see.”