The little girl had been sitting on the window ledge of the next room, and remembering the long journey round the Horn, often cheered by the brightness of Miss Alwood. She sprang down now and came forward.
"What a little dot she keeps! Laverne, I am going to be your neighbor, and I am to have a little girl who will be a playmate for you. I can't answer about the other, girls begin to put on airs so soon. Do you go to school?"
"No, I have taught her thus far. But it is rather lonely for a child. There was no one about where we lived, but some distance below a Spanish family which hardly knew whether to affiliate or not."
"They are very brilliant farther down the coast. Monterey is the place to see them in their glory. I wish we had gone there, but Miss Personette hated the strumming of a guitar and the click-clack of the language, as she termed it. And now, can't you leave household cares and come for a drive?"
"I have a splendid pony," said Laverne.
"Why, that is quite delightful. But you will not disdain my carriage, I hope."
Miss Holmes rather hesitated, but Miss Alwood overruled all the objections. And she remembered that Mr. Chadsey said they need not expect him home to dinner. Now that he was so much nearer he came back to an old-fashioned love for a midday dinner.
First they went down to Mason Street. There was quite a fine finished block of houses, detached, with gardens on both sides. Down below it was unfinished but the street had been straightened, the low places were being filled up, the hillocks levelled.
"Oh," Miss Holmes began, with a depth of feeling that touched her friend, "you can't think how glad I am this has happened to you. We have had some hard things in our lives, and now we have really gone into a new world."
"And I wish you the same good luck. I did not quite like your being buried down in that out-of-the-way place."