"She's a quick-witted girl,
and I shan't worry. I mean to be happy in spite of everything--and
_because_ of everything!"
So the stage rolled on into the gate of the Yosemite and Kate remained on
the veranda of the hotel at El Portal, consoling herself, when she had
retrieved Timmy, by looking at the pictures in the _Illustrated London
News_, an old number of a fortnight or three weeks ago. She found it so
interesting and absorbing, one page in particular, that when the next
coach bound for the Sentinel Hotel came along, she forgot to fight for a
place until it was too late to fight. There was not another stage bound
for that destination until to-morrow. And to-morrow Mrs. May and Hilliard
were going on somewhere else. Kate could not remember where.
Seeing her dismay, the manager of the hotel took pity on the pretty Irish
girl. "Never mind," said he. "You can 'phone from here to the Sentinel.
When your lady arrives there this afternoon, she'll find your message and
know what's happened. Then she can 'phone back what she wants you to do."
"But I won't get to her to-night, will I?" wailed Kate.
"No, you won't get to her to-night," he echoed. "But I guess she ain't so
helpless she can't do up her back hair without you, is she?"
"Her blouse buttons up behind," Kate murmured, as one murmurs in a painful
dream.
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