"
So earnest was she, that I believed what she told me, and was sorry
that I could not answer all her questions. We parted as most people did
in those days, feeling that the meeting was good, and the parting might
be forever.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ELITHA, FRANCES, AND MR. MILLER VISIT US--MRS. BRUNNER CLAIMS US AS HER
CHILDREN--THE DAGUERREOTYPE.
The spring-tide of 1852 was bewitchingly beautiful; hills and plain
were covered with wild flowers in countless shapes and hues. They were
so friendly that they sprang up in dainty clusters close to the house
doors, or wherever an inch of ground would give them foothold.
They seemed to call to me, and I looked into their bright faces, threw
myself among them, and hugged as many as my arms could encircle, then
laid my ear close to the ground to catch the low sound of moving leaf
and stem, or of the mysterious ticking in the earth, which foretells
the coming of later plants. Sometimes in my ecstasy, I would shut my
eyes and lie still for a while, then open them inquiringly, to assure
myself that all my favorites were around me still, and that it was not
all a day-dream.
This lovely season mellowed into the Summer which brought a most
unexpected letter from our sister Frances, who had been living all
these years with the family of Mr. James F. Reed, in San Jose.
Childlike, she wrote:
I am happy, but there has not been a day since I left Sutter's Fort
that I haven't thought of my little sisters and wanted to see them.
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