Time had been when, with abundant means and few cares, Miss Sanford busied herself in local charities and became a social power in her community. But with loss of money came lack of appreciation. She who had long managed the Mission kindergarten, and mainly financed it, was presently superseded as president of the board. She who had ever been foremost in the counsels of the Infants' Home and the St. Mary's Guild found herself gradually slighted in the matter of entertainments, etc., though still graciously permitted to do most of the clerical work.

For nearly a dozen years she had served as secretary and treasurer of the Young Woman's Church Aid and Temperance Union, a beneficent organization that still held many meetings but few converts. It had the backing of three or four wealthy congregations, however, and the control of a generous fund. When the year '94 was ushered in and the victims of the panic of '93 were enumerated, the case of Priscilla Sanford had excited prompt and rather widespread interest; but the sympathy that might have been as readily accorded was tempered by the reflection that Miss Sanford had ever been what they termed "bossy," by which it was by no means meant to imply that bovine sluggishness and submission were Miss Sanford's marked characteristics, for Miss Sanford was energy personified in petticoats. It had been moved, seconded and carried, in a spasm of feminine generosity, that the secretary and treasurer should be paid a salary, small, to be sure, but something, and Priscilla Sanford, who had labored without fee or financial reward a dozen years, was permitted to hold the position as a salaried official just one year longer, by which time it was determined that Miss Sanford had really been secretary much too long, and, anyhow, that somebody else stood much more in need of it. So Priscilla's party found itself outvoted at the annual election, and the Young Woman's Church Aid ceased, except in name, to be a temperance union. With much that was intemperate in tone and language, the union burst its bonds and flew to pieces, one or more to each congregation. Then Priscilla tried her hand at writing for the various journals of the clerical order. Some few published, but none paid for, her contributions. Then Aunt Marion began sending occasional drafts that were not to be mentioned to anybody. Then came Priscilla's bid to join Uncle Will and Aunt Marion at Minneconjou, and then – Priscilla herself.

She had been there barely forty-eight hours when there arrived from the Philippines a bulky letter from Lieutenant Sandy Ray, eldest son and hope and heir, dated "Camp Lawton, Benguet." It had been nearly three months on the way. It brought tidings that made his mother's soft cheek pale with anxiety and caused Colonel Ray to look up startled as he read it, to go over and take his wife in his arms, lead her to the sofa, and hold her close as he went on with the final pages – a boy's rhapsody over a boy's first love:

My Own Mummie: – Not until I could send you the inclosed, the portrait, and by no means flattering one, of the loveliest girl that ever lived, could I write to tell you of my almost delirious happiness. But look at her —look at her, and see for yourself and rejoice with me, best, blessedest, dearest of mothers, that this exquisite creature loves me —me, your no 'count, ranch boy Sandy – loves me, and will soon, please God, be my own wife. Mother, mother, I have hardly slept in my wild joy, and now I can hardly wait for your approval and blessing. Dad will love and admire her, I know, but mothers, they say, never think any woman good enough for their boys, while I – I could kiss the very ground she treads so lightly. I almost worship the very glove she left me for a souvenir.

As yet I can't quite realize my wondrous luck. Why, Mummie, the other fellows were simply mad about her during her brief stay at Manila. Quite a lot of us, you know, were ordered there when poor Jack Bender was court-martialed. He got a stay of proceedings of some kind, so while the witnesses should have been back with General Young here, they were dancing attendance on her, and the way I got the inside track was, when her parents had to go over to Japan, I coaxed a ten days' leave out of the General and went with them – her father, mother and her own sweet self – on the Hancock to Nagasaki, and came back desolate on the – I don't know what.

I met her at a dance at the Club. She attracted me the instant I set eyes on her, so like is she to Maidie, only darker, perhaps, and taller, and a bit more slender. But her eyes, hair, teeth, coloring, are all so like Maidie's. Her features, perhaps, are more regular. Shannon, of the Twenty-third, was doing the devoted, and he presented me. She danced like a sylph, she danced right into my heart, Mummie, and there she lives and reigns and has her being – my queen! my queen!

Oh, what nonsense this must sound to you! All my wise resolutions as to young men marrying on lieutenant's pay thrown to the wind! That, however, need not worry us. The major, her father, is well-to-do, and she's an only child; but this is sordid. It is she that I love, and the man does not live who could see and know her and not worship. Why, even our old friend Captain Dwight was fascinated and didn't half like it that I should have gone with her to Nagasaki, and he was stiff as a ramrod when I came back. But to return to her father. He, of course, doesn't expect to remain in the army after the war. He was made major and quartermaster, I presume because of his financial experience and worth, and he was so patriotic he felt he had to get into the field as something. He is a Texan by long residence, if not birth; owns two or three ranches, and his wife, my darling's mother, is a Spanish lady whom he met years ago in Cuba, then Señorita de la Cruz y Mendoza y Fronteras, etc., etc., but she, my lady, never speaks of this. She is simplicity and sweetness itself. She bears her father's honored name, and that alone, except for her own Christian name, the sweetest ever – Inez.

The major's health has suffered much in Manila, but it is hoped that six weeks in Japan may restore him entirely. If not, they will take the homeward voyage by way of Vancouver in one of the fine ships of the Empress line instead of our crowded transports. Hundreds of State volunteers are going back by every one of these and, being discharged, or as good as discharged, they consider themselves relieved from all discipline – which makes it unpleasant for families of officers. They (the Farrells) may winter in 'Frisco, where I hope to join them in the spring, and where you will be sure to see them when you and Dad and the squadron embark for the Islands. There won't be anything left of the insurrection, or much of the insurrectos, at the rate things are going, by the time you come, but meanwhile, like the loving Mummie you are, write to them, especially to her, that your future daughter may know a loving welcome awaits her. She seems timid as to that and fears you may not like her, and Dad will, of course, write to Major Farrell, who is as keen a lover of horses as ever he was, and who owns some of the finest blooded stock ever seen in the South. This letter goes registered because of the priceless photograph, which was taken at Hong Kong, Inez tells me, just after their voyage over, when she was looking like a fright. Being registered, it must go slowly and may be long in reaching you, but fancy your Sandy's joy, if you can. Send this to Maidie, if you will, for I have no time to write to both. I am commanding my troop and we march at dawn for the mountains, and may be weeks now in the jungle, chasing Aguinaldo. Several of our fellows have broken down and had to go to the sea or back to Corregidor, even over to Japan, to recuperate, but I feel like a fighting cock and am going in now to win a name for myself, and for her, that you'll all be proud of. One thing I can tell you proudly, mother dear: never since that day at the Presidio, ever so much more than a year ago, have I let even a sip of wine pass my lips, the first and only teetotaler among the Rays, and perhaps that has something to do with my perfect physical trim. I owe you this, and have gladly kept the faith. Now in my new-found happiness I feel as if I could keep that and every other faith to the end. Lovingly, devotedly, your boy,

Sanford Ray.

P. S. – Inez says it should not be announced until you all have approved, whereas I wished and would be for shouting the news from the housetops. There is a chance of getting this to you quicker than I thought. Captain Dwight has never been himself since Bender's trial and conviction. General Young wanted him to take sick leave last month and go to Japan, but he wouldn't. Now he's fairly broken down and has to be left behind, so this will go to Manila with him. I wonder – I can't help wondering – what he'd think if he knew what was in it. The fellows do say she could have had him and his money, yet she chose your boy, Sandy.

For a moment after reading the final page Colonel Ray sat in silence. Aloft could be heard the firm footfalls of Miss Sanford as she bustled about her room unpacking her belated trunks. Within, with merry snap and sparkle, the fresh-heaped wood fire blazed in the broad open fireplace. Without, the orderly trumpeter, away over by the flagstaff, was winding the last note of stable call. The late afternoon sunshine flooded the valley of the Minneconjou. The mountain air, cool, bracing, redolent of pine and cedar, stirred the tracery of the white curtains at the open southward window and fluttered the silken folds of the standard and guidons at the parlor archway. Anxiously the mother heart was throbbing by his side, and the fond eyes sought the soldier's strong, storm-beaten face. Then she noted the look of bewilderment in his gaze, for again he was studying that postscript. Then suddenly he stretched forth his hand, took from the little pile of newspapers on a chair a copy of a recent army journal, swiftly turned over a page or two, searching the columns with half doubtful eyes; then, finding what he needed, thumbed the paragraph and held it where she could easily see. "Read that," said Ray, and Marion read aloud:

"San Francisco, – 18. – Among the arrivals at the Occidental by the Sheridan from Manila and Nagasaki are Major, Mrs. and Miss Farrell and Captain Oswald M. Dwight, the latter of the – th Cavalry. Major Farrell, Quartermaster U. S. Volunteers, is the owner of valuable properties in Texas, whither he is soon to return. Captain Dwight, one of the most distinguished of our squadron leaders, is rapidly recuperating from serious illness contracted in the Philippines. The voyage proved a blessing in more ways than one, for the dinner given by Major and Mrs. Farrell last night, to a select coterie at the Bohemian Club, was to announce the engagement of their lovely daughter, Inez, to this gallant trooper, who won his spurs in the Apache campaign of the '80's, and the sympathy of hosts of friends on the Pacific coast in the death of his devoted wife six years ago. They will now rejoice with him in his joy, and unite with us in wishing him and his young and beautiful bride all possible felicity."

Mrs. Ray turned, all amaze, incredulity and distress; then, with something like a sob, buried her face on the sturdy blue shoulder. There was suspicious moisture about her husband's blinking eyes, and he for a moment could hardly trust himself to speak.

"Is it —our boy now, dear?" he gently asked, and her head came up at the instant, her blue eyes welling over with indignant tears:

"Oh, Will," she answered, "you know well what I'm thinking. It is of her– of Margaret – it is of their boy – poor little motherless Jim!"