Under a tall linden tree shedding its yellowy perfumed blossoms about her a young girl stood alone, waiting. She was pale and fragile and leaned slightly on a cane; her hair was a deep bronze, the color of copper in the sunlight, and her gray eyes, were now unusually dark with emotion. She was evidently trying to appear less disturbed than she felt, for her head was tilted back the least bit and her lips were held close together; indeed, her whole attitude suggested a strong effort at self-control.

“Jack!” Two figures came running across the lawn entirely unconscious of the number of persons about them, and the girl in the costume of an English shepherdess arrived at the desired goal first.

“Olive!” There are no adequate words that can be spoken on first meeting after a long separation from one we love. And so for several moments the two ranch girls clung together trying hard to keep back their tears, while Jean, standing a little apart from them, pretended to laugh at their emotion.

“But, Jack, you are well. Why didn’t you let us know? When did it happen? There are so many things I want to ask you and yet I don’t care whether you answer me or not, I am so glad you are here.” Olive said at last.

“Perhaps it wasn’t quite fair of me, Olive, to have taken you so much by surprise. Jean and Frieda had a few days of warning. But you see it was like this,” Jack explained, leaning a little more heavily on her cane, although neither Jean nor Olive noticed it. “When my operation was over neither the surgeons nor anybody knew just at first whether or not I was to get well. So of course Ruth did not wish to write and tell you until we were certain. Then after a little while when I began to get stronger I thought how I should love to surprise you by appearing out here at Primrose Hall just as I have done to-day. Of course I did not mean to put off coming until commencement day,” Jack continued apologetically, “but somehow I did not get well quite as fast as I expected, until it had to be now or never, so Ruth wrote Jean and Frieda to expect us this morning but not to let you know, for we were afraid that seeing me would somehow affect your speech.”

“It nearly finished it altogether,” Olive returned. “Just think how I felt, Jack, when suddenly in the midst of my poor effort I saw you standing straight up in the crowd looking just as you used to do.”

“I shouldn’t have stood up, Ruth tried her best to hide me, only I got so excited.” Jack wavered a little. “Jean, of course I am perfectly well, but would you mind getting me a chair; I am not accustomed to standing so long.”

Feeling dreadfully ashamed of her thoughtlessness, Jean hurried off, returning in another minute empty handed. But following close behind her was a tall man in a costume that somehow looked a little out of place at Primrose Hall. Also he walked with a freedom and power that did not speak of city streets, neither did the deep tan of his skin. He was carrying the big, comfortable chair for Jean.

“Oh, Jim, Mr. Colter, I don’t think it fair to give a person so many surprises in one day!” Olive protested.

Jim Colter, the overseer of the Rainbow Ranch and the manager of the Rainbow Mine, was engaged in helping Jack into her chair so that he could not at once shake hands with Olive. But in another moment his big hands closed over hers.

“Don’t talk about surprises, Miss Olive Van Mater,” he replied. “To think I used to laugh at all the yarns in the story books, and here I was raising up a real live heroine out at the Rainbow Ranch, whose history makes most of the fiction tales look real pale! But ain’t it great to see the boss herself again. I couldn’t believe she was getting well when she wrote me; I was like that man from Missouri, ‘you had to show me’.” And here Jim put his hand on top of Jack’s uncovered head.

“Jim Colter, where are you and Jack and everybody?” a new voice demanded. “I promised to let Jack and Olive have just five minutes together alone, and I have, but now I am not going to let my sister get out of my sight again as long as I live!” Frieda had joined the little group under the linden tree just as Jim was finishing his speech and before Olive could answer him.

Now Olive turned again to Jack. “Do you know about everything, my grandmother and all my queer history?” she asked.

Jack nodded. “Yes, Olive, I do know,” she returned, “and I am awfully glad and awfully sorry, for somehow it seems to make you belong to us less than you used to do. Ruth told me as soon as she thought I was well enough to hear. Didn’t you know that I have even had a letter from your grandmother thanking me for rescuing you from a person by whom she had been deceived, meaning old Laska, I suppose. But goodness gracious, who are all those persons coming towards us now?”

Half a dozen persons were approaching, Madame Van Mater and Miss Winthrop, Ruth Drew and Gerry Ferrows, and bringing up the end of the line Jessica Hunt and Peter Drummond, smiling at one another and apparently unconscious of every one else.

With great solemnity introductions were soon exchanged and then immediately afterwards Gerry Ferrows slipped over next Olive.

“Miss Winthrop said I might be first to tell you that you have received the Shakespeare prize,” she whispered. “The judges voted your speech the most effective, and as you already had the best record for the year in the Junior Shakespeare class, why of course the honors are yours and I want to congratulate you.”

With entire good feeling Gerry put forth her hand toward her victorious rival.

But Olive quickly clasped her own hands behind her. “I won’t be congratulated, Gerry, and I won’t have a prize that I don’t deserve,” she answered. “Tell me, please, who was the second choice?”

“I was, or at least the judges said so, though I entirely disagree with them,” Gerry returned, blushing furiously, for Olive was almost forcibly trying to drag her over to where Madame Van Mater and Miss Winthrop were standing together.

“Yes, the Shakespeare prize is to be yours, Gerry,” Miss Winthrop at once explained. “Olive wanted the pleasure of trying for it just to see what she could do, but Madame Van Mater does not wish the prize given her, and of course under the circumstances Olive does not wish it herself.”

Ten minutes later Jean, Frieda, Olive and Gerry were peremptorily borne away by a number of their classmates. Later on from a kind of throne on one of the Primrose Hall verandas Jack and some of her friends witnessed the pretty ceremony of the crowning of Olive as Queen of the day. For several hours afterwards the dancing out on the lawn continued, Olive raising a silver wand as a signal for each dance to begin and then in royal fashion leading it off herself. Four or five times during the afternoon Olive and Donald Harmon had been partners. Once, when Jack had been watching them, she happened to turn to speak to Madame Van Mater, who sat next her. But whatever she may have intended to say she did not, but instead waited to study her companion’s expression.

There was no doubt that Madame Van Mater was looking distinctly pleased at the sight of Olive and Donald together, for there was almost a smile of satisfaction on her face. Watching her, Jack flushed, biting her lips, then she leaned over and spoke:

“You are very good, Madame Van Mater, to be willing to have Olive go home with us to our ranch this summer. I wonder if afterwards you will do something that is kinder still?” she asked.

With distinct approval Madame Van Mater regarded Jack, for there was an air of distinction and aristocracy about her that was very pleasing.

“It was Katherine Winthrop’s idea that I should not interfere with my granddaughter’s liberty at present,” she replied; “but what more would you have me to do?”

For answer Jack, who was growing weary, leaned back on her sofa cushions looking out over the garden and fields to where afar off she could see just a silver line marking the course of the Hudson River.

“I have been shut up inside a hospital for seven months, Madame Van Mater,” she explained slowly, “and until my accident I don’t believe I had ever been indoors twenty-four hours together in my life. And all the time lately I have been thinking and longing for just two things. One to see our beloved ranch again, to get on horseback and ride for miles and miles over the prairie. And then—”

“And then?” old Madame Van Mater repeated with more interest than you would believe she could show.

Jack laughed. “Why then I want to travel as far and as fast as I can. You see, I have been shut in so long and some days I used to think perhaps I should never see much more of the world than just four walls.” Jack shuddered and then braced her shoulders in her old, determined way. “But I am well now and, as the doctors don’t wish me to be in school, I want you to promise to let Olive go to Europe with Jean and Frieda and me next fall?”

“Europe?” Madame Van Mater reflected a moment. “An excellent idea! I could have planned nothing better for Olive, for travel and experience may give her just the ease and culture she needs. But who will look after you?”

At this moment Ruth Drew slowly approached towards Jack and her companion. She too was looking pale and worn from her long vigil of watching, but she smiled as Jack, reaching forth, took tight hold of her hand.

“Why Miss Drew will chaperon us, of course,” she answered. “She will not go home with us this summer, but she has promised to go abroad afterwards and to stay forever if we wish.”

Before Ruth could do more than make a conventional reply, Miss Winthrop arriving persuaded her old friend to join her in saying farewell to her guests.

So just for a few moments, as all their friends were walking about in the great garden, Ruth and Jack were once more left alone. Not far off they could see Jim Colter slowly approaching them with Jean and Frieda holding on to his hands like little girls.

Jack looked first at Jim and then turned to the older girl at her side.

“I am so sorry, Ruth,” she said, “perhaps I was foolish, but I used to hope in those long empty days at the hospital that when you and Jim saw each other again you would forget what has separated you and only remember you care for one another. Somehow when one has been very ill, love seems the only thing that is really important.”

Ruth flushed until she looked like the old Ruth of those last weeks at the ranch before Jim had made the tragic confession of his past fault to her. “Jim does not care for me any more, Jack dear,” she whispered, although no one was near enough to hear. “He has not spoken to me alone since he arrived in New York, so I suppose he has not forgiven my hardness and narrowness; besides, men forget love very easily.”

Jack shook her head and somehow her expression was happier than it had been the moment before Ruth’s speech. “Jim does not forget,” she answered, “he is the faithfulest, tenderest, kindest person in the world.” And then the oldest ranch girl sighed. “Dear me, isn’t it the horridest thing in the world to have to wait for the nice things to happen?” she asked. “Of course, we all know, Ruth, that some day everything will turn out for the best, but it is just that silly old indefinite word some that makes the waiting so difficult.”

The next volume to be issued in the Ranch Girls’ Series will appear under the title of “The Ranch Girls in Europe.” In this story the histories of the four girls and their chaperon will be more fully developed, for having put childhood and school life behind them, they will enter that broader world of young womanhood, where romance stands ever waiting round the corner.