Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/239



NE week from the day Viola had told her father of their contemplated return to San Francisco, Colonel Reed had passed into a memory.

Death had come and gone so quickly—so terribly, bewilderingly quickly! Viola had hardly realized what had happened to so check and change the current of her life when the days had already sprung back to their monotonous routine, and the other boarders had laid aside the expressions of lugubrious solemnity which they had worn while death had hushed the house. Now, while she sat still and stupid in her room up-stairs, they told funny stories and "joshed" each other at dinner, as they had "joshed" the old pioneer a few weeks before. Even Corinne had returned to the doll and the kitten, though, out of consideration for Viola, she played with them furtively on the corner of the balcony, where, with the assistance of an old umbrella and a pair of towels, she had built herself what she called a house. One