"Oh, I presume the girls will have some welcome arranged for our arrival! As our train was several hours late, I telegraphed ahead. But, child, do spend less time in worrying over your success or failure as a stepmother. We have given too much attention to the question for the past six weeks. The new Ranch Girls are wise enough to know in what luck they are playing! They may not be as grateful to you as I am; that is asking more than one should expect. What troubles me is not your rôle as a stepmother, but as the wife of a man as old as I am. Looking back now, I often wonder how I had the courage for our marriage!"[1]
"Courage! Jim, what a word to use! Yet of course I realize that it must have required courage to marry me! Jean and Olive and Frieda, your three other Ranch Girls of long ago, often have told you how much courage it would require. But on this night of our home-coming I did not expect to be reminded of it by you. By the way, will you please be kind enough not to call me 'child' in public? You did the other day. I can bear the title now and then in private, but in public it reflects on the dignity I'm afraid I never have been able to acquire. Now with four new daughters I really must learn to become a different individual!"
Jack rode nearer. Her horse leaned its head as if to confide in the other horse cantering quietly beside it.
"Jim, I was thinking of something just now, something real," she whispered. "I don't know whether I ought to say it. Remember the marriage ceremony says 'for better, for worse, for rich or for poor, in sickness and in health.' You and I have been through these experiences together as friends. Remember how poor we were in those old days before gold was discovered in Rainbow Creek? There was my long illness and the trouble we had in trying to keep the old ranch from being stolen from us!"[2]
"Never mind all these reminiscences, Jack; it is the future I am interested in at present, not the past," Mr. Colter remonstrated.
"One more promise you must make me. Promise never to interfere in my effort. The girls must either like or dislike me. I must win them myself, or never win at all."
Jack half arose in her saddle, pointing ahead. "See the lights of Rainbow Castle there in the distance!" She was as excited as if the house to which she was returning had not been her home in girlhood.
It was true that she was coming back in a new character, wife of her former guardian and stepmother to his four young daughters.
Her companion obeyed her suggestion.
Across the fields they beheld lights glimmering from a number of windows. They were still half a mile away.