"The daughter is dead, too, you know," said Mr. Sanders. "He had found that out, he told me."
Mary Lee turned to her mother. "I think I am glad of that," she said. "Now, maybe, they are all three together."
"Well, I must be going," said Mr. Sanders. "I am glad to have seen you again."
"The others will like to see you, Mr. Sanders," said Mrs. Corner. "I know Jack will want to hear about your little girl. Go find your sisters, Mary Lee, and tell them Mr. Sanders is here."
Mary Lee laid the envelope in her mother's lap and went to seek the others who came rushing in to ask about Bessie and to hear all the news of the ranch.
"I am so sorry Jo Poker is dead," said Jack; "now he can never play on the flute for us any more."
"Never mind, Jack," said Jean, "perhaps he's playing on a harp now."
"But I can't hear him," returned Jack nothing comforted.
After answering Jack's hundred questions and being made the bearer of as many messages, Mr. Sanders took his leave saying that he must make a train soon if he wanted to get home that night. "I'm glad I had your address," he said as he was about to go, "or I mightn't have been able to get that message delivered for some time."
Mary Lee gathered the note again into her own keeping. "Come, mother," she said, "let's go somewhere by ourselves. I want you to be with me when I read this. I feel so very solemn about it."