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I stroked the little one’s hand, which nestled confidingly in mine, and said, half absently, “And she never came back?”

The child had fallen into a reverie, her big violet eyes fastened on the ground at our feet, but my words roused her into sociability again and she chattered on:

“No, ‘course not, she never comed back. But one day ‘ere was a letter, all alone dust for me, an’ my papa called me an’ said, ‘Here is a letter for my little girl; now, I wonder who it’s from?’ She said this with the quaintest imitation of grown-up condescension addressing a child, waited a moment, as if to give to suspense its proper effect, and then went on:

“He tored it open an’ inside the en’lope was dust a tiny bit of a letter wif just a little bit of reading and writing on it. An’ ‘en my papa dropped it ‘s if it was a yellow-jacket an’ he said, great big an’ loud, ‘Money! from them! Don’t touch it, child!’ An’ he frowed it in the fire. But I did n’t see no money and I wanted to keep my letter, ’cause it was all mine. But I had my new mamma then, an’ when I cried she writed me another letter.”

“Yes,” I said, “it’s very queer to have two mammas, is n’t it? But when did you get your new mamma?”

“Well, one day, after there was n’t any more snow, we all went to church. And I had on my new white dress–it’s awful pretty–and a new ribbon on my hair, and a new hat–not this old one–prettier than this, lots, with pretty flowers on it. And papa and–and–her, they stood up and talked wif the preacher, an’ I would n’t sit still. I dust runned right up side of my papa and held on to his leg all the time. An’ when the preacher did n’t talk any more she picked me up an’ hugged me tight, an’ kissed me an’ said, ‘I ‘m going to be your mamma now, darling.’

“An’ she ‘s been my new mamma ever since, an’ I ‘m going to keep her for my mamma always and always, and I don’t want my gone-away mamma ever to come back, ’cause I love my new mamma best.”

Just then there burst upon the warm, soft air a babel of shouts and yells and loud hurrahs. The wee maiden turned a brightening face in the direction of the uproar, and announced:

“That’s wecess. I must go now. I ‘spect my mamma will want me. She is n’t dust my new mamma, she is n’t. She’s the teacher, too. An’ I go to school wif her every day. But I don’t have to stay in the schoolhouse ‘less I want to.”

She slipped off the log and started down the path, and then came back to kiss me good-bye. The hurried tread of a woman rustled through the thicket, and a Madonna-like face appeared between the branches.

“Come, dearie,” she called, and the child ran across the glade, jumped into her arms and nestled upon her neck with a cry of delight.

Months afterward, in a city on the other side of the continent, I met a beautiful woman. She was a little overdressed and over-jewelled, but I thought as I talked with her that never before had I seen a woman of such glorious perfection of features and complexion and figure.

My visit to the Yosemite, the previous summer, chanced to be mentioned, and at once she began to ask me question after question about the Valley, and about those who live in it and cater to the comfort of travellers. Her husband, tall, athletic-looking, and handsome, leaned upon the back of her chair and made tactful efforts to divert the conversation into other channels. She yielded for the moment, but soon managed to lead me away to a quiet nook where she at once re-commenced her inquiries. Her beautiful face haunted and teased me with suggestions of previous sight. But I could not recall any former meeting, and so I decided that some chance street view of her countenance had impressed its beauty upon my memory.