But I am anticipating.  Before the trunks were packed, Dr. Carr’s anxieties about his “Babes in the Wood” were greatly allayed by a visit from Mrs. Hall.  She came to tell him that she had heard of a possible “matron” for Clover.

“I am not acquainted with the lady myself,” she said; “but my cousin, who writes about her, knows her quite well, and says she is a highly respectable person, and belongs to nice people.  Her sister, or some one, married a Phillips of Boston, and I’ve always heard that that family was one of the best there.  She’s had some malarial trouble, and is at the West now on account of it, staying with a friend in Omaha; but she wants to spend the summer at St. Helen’s.  And as I know you have worried a good deal over having Clover and Phil go off by themselves, I thought it might be a comfort to you to hear of this Mrs. Watson.”

“You are very good.  If she proves to be the right sort of person, it will be an immense comfort.  Do you know when she wants to start?”

“About the end of May,—­just the right time, you see.  She could join Clover and Philip as they go through, which will work nicely for them all.”

“So it will.  Well, this is quite a relief.  Please write to your cousin, Mrs. Hall, and make the arrangement.  I don’t want Mrs. Watson to be burdened with any real care of the children, of course; but if she can arrange to go along with them, and give Clover a word of advice now and then, should she need it, I shall be easier in my mind about them.”

Clover was only doubtfully grateful when she heard of this arrangement.

“Papa always will persist in thinking that I am a baby still,” she said to Katy, drawing her little figure up to look as tall as possible.  “I am twenty-two, I would have him remember.  How do we know what this Mrs. Watson is like?  She may be the most disagreeable person in the world for all papa can tell.”

“I really can’t find it in my heart to be sorry that it has happened, papa looks so much relieved by it,” Katy rejoined.

But all dissatisfactions and worries and misgivings took wings and flew away when, just ten days before the travellers were to start, a new and delightful change was made in the programme.  Ned telegraphed that the ship, instead of coming to New York, was ordered to San Francisco to refit, and he wanted Katy to join him there early in June, prepared to spend the summer; while almost simultaneously came a letter from Mrs. Ashe, who with Amy had been staying a couple of months in New York, to say that hearing of Ned’s plan had decided her also to take a trip to California with some friends who had previously asked her to join them.  These friends were, it seemed, the Daytons of Albany.  Mr. Dayton was a railroad magnate, and had the control of a private car in which the party were to travel; and Mrs. Ashe was authorized to invite Katy, and Clover and Phil also, to go along with them,—­the former all the way to California, and the others as far as Denver, where the roads separated.