"Here's Astor with three big hotels on his hands--why shouldn't I have one to play with?
And I've got to employ _somebody_ to manage it!" ***** Within a year of her marriage Diantha was at the head of this pleasing Centre of Housekeeping.

She kept the hotel itself so that it was a joy to all its patrons; she kept the little houses homes of pure delight for those who were so fortunate as to hold them; and she kept up her "c.
f.

d." business till it grew so large she had to have quite a fleet of delivery wagons.
Orchardina basked and prospered; its citizens found their homes happier and less expensive than ever before, and its citizenesses began to wake up and to do things worth while.
***** Two years, and there was a small Ross Warden born.
She loved it, nursed it, and ran her business at long range for some six months.

But then she brought nurse and child to the hotel with her, placed them in the cool, airy nursery in the garden, and varied her busy day with still hours by herself--the baby in her arms.
Back they came together before supper, and found unbroken joy and peace in the quiet of home; but always in the background was the current of Ross' unspoken disapproval.
Three years, four years.
There were three babies now; Diantha was a splendid woman of thirty, handsome and strong, pre-eminently successful--and yet, there were times when she found it in her heart to envy the most ordinary people who loved and quarreled and made up in the little outlying ranch houses along the road; they had nothing between them, at least.
Meantime in the friendly opportunities of Orchardina society, added to by the unexampled possibilities of Las Casas (and they did not scorn this hotel nor Diantha's position in it), the three older Miss Wardens had married.

Two of them preferred "the good old way," but one tried the "d.