"And your hat! The sun is shining."
Cecil gives a glad spring then, and almost drags her father down the wide stairs. A young colored lad is brushing off the porch, but the two go down on the path that is speckless and as hard as a floor. The lawn slopes slowly toward the river, broken by a few clumps of shrubbery, a summer-house covered with vines, and another resembling a pagoda, with a great copper beech beside it. There are some winding paths, and it all ends with a stone wall, as the shore is very irregular. There is a boat-house, and a strip of gravelly beach, now that the tide is out.
Grandon turns and looks toward the house. Yes, it is handsome, grand. Youth and age together did not make any blunder of it. There is the tower, that was to be his study and library and place of resort generally. What crude dreams he had in those days! Science and poesy, art and history, were all a sad jumble in his brain, and now he has found his life-work. He hopes that he may make the world a little wiser, raise some few souls up to the heights he has found so delightful.
Cecil dances about like a fairy. She is at home amid green fields once more, for the ocean was to her a dreary desert, and the many strange faces made her uncomfortable. She is oddly exclusive and delicate, even chary about herself, but alone with her father she is all childish abandon.
There is a stir about the house presently, and Grandon begins to retrace his steps.
"Don't go," entreats Cecil.
"My dear, we must have breakfast. Grandmamma and the aunties will be waiting."
"Are they going to live there always!" with an indication of the fair head.
"Yes, some of them."
"And are we going to live there for ever and ever?"