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I’ve had such a blow! Tom, with an effort, has succeeded in remembering this Mr. Harshaw who is poor Kitty’s fate. He must have been years in this country,–long enough to have citizenized himself and become a member of our first Idaho legislature (I don’t believe you even know that we are a State!). Tom was on the supper committee of the ball the city gave them. They were a deplorable set of men; it was easy enough to remember the nice ones. Tom says he is a “chump,” if you know what that means. I tell him that every man, married or single, is constitutionally horrid to any other man who has had the luck to be chosen of a charming girl. But I’m afraid Harshaw wasn’t one of the nice ones, or I should have remembered him myself; we had them to dinner–all who were at all worth while.

Poor Kitty! There is so little here to come for but the man.

Well, my dear, here’s a pretty kettle of fish! Kitty has arrived, and one Mr. Harshaw. Where the Mr. Harshaw is, quien sabe ! It’s awfully late. Poor Kitty has gone to bed, and has cried herself to sleep, I dare say, if sleep she can. I never have heard of a girl being treated so.

Tom and the other Mr. Harshaw are smoking in the dining-room, and Tom is talking endlessly–what about I can’t imagine, unless he is giving this young record-breaker his opinion of his extraordinary conduct. But I must begin at the beginning.

Mrs. Percifer wired us from New York the day the bride-elect started, and she was to wire us from Ogden, which she did. I went to the train to meet her, and I told Tom to be on the watch for the bridegroom, who would come in from his ranch on the Snake River, by wagon or on horseback, across country from Ten Mile. To come by rail he’d have had to go round a hundred miles or so, by Mountain Home. An American would have done it, of course, and have come in with her on the train; but the Percifers plainly expected no such wild burst of enthusiasm from him.

The train was late. I walked and walked the platform; some of the people who were waiting went away, but I dared not leave my post. I fell to watching a spurt of dust away off across the river toward the mesa. It rolled up fast, and presently I saw a man on horseback; then I didn’t see him; then he had crossed the bridge and was pounding down the track-side toward the depot. He pulled up and spoke to a trainman, and after that he walked his horse as if he was satisfied.

This is Harshaw, I thought, and a very pretty fellow, but not in the least like an Idaho legislator. I can’t say that I care for the sort of Englishman who is so prompt to swear allegiance to our flag; they never do unless they want to go in for government land, or politics, or something that has nothing to do with any flag. But this youngster looked ridiculously young. I simply knew he was coming for that girl, and that he had no ulterior motives whatever. He was ashy-white with dust–hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, and his fair little mustache all powdered with it; his corduroys, leggings, and hat all of a color. I saw no baggage, and I wondered what he expected to be married in. He leaned on his horse dizzily a moment when he first got out of the saddle, and the poor beast stretched his fore legs, and rocked with the gusts of his panting, his sides going in and out like a pair of bellows. The young fellow handed him over to a man to take to the stables, and I saw him give him a regular bridegroom’s tip. He’s all right, I said to myself, and Tom was horrid to call him a “chump.” He beat himself off a bit, and went in and talked to the ticket-agent. They looked at their watches.