Stephen Duncan.
“Winthrop you are not to tease Miss Endicott, nor to classify her, either. I take her under my especial protection.”
“I lay down my arms at once, Aunt Lucy. I am your most obedient.”
And so it went on with bits of fun and pleasantness cropping out now and then. Mr. Churchill unbending, Miss Churchill straying from the little hedge of formalities, sweet as a wild briar blossom. And Lucy was nearly as bright as Fan.
The carriage came around soon afterwards. Mr. Ogden insisted upon driving, so the man was dispensed with. The Churchill estate was very large, including the mountainous track and a good deal of woodland. It was not a much frequented drive, although Round Hill was one of the curiosities of the town. But the Churchills and the Garthwaites seemed to fence it in with their sense of ownership, and it was not common property like Longmeadow and the Cascades.
But it was very beautiful in the low lying light. Here was a field in deep gloom, shadowed by yonder trees, here a strip of waving grain, then long sweeps of grassy hillsides broken by clumps of young cedars or hemlocks. An irregular wooded chain—the mountains, Wachusetts’ people called them, divided us from the quaint little town lying in the next valley. Here was the delightful opening that appeared more level by contrast with the tall trees on both sides, and next, symmetrical Round Hill, in a flood of golden red light, for the sun was going down between this and the next eminence.
Fan just turned to Miss Lucy and put out her hand. But the eloquent words and the intense appreciation were in her fluttering color, her swelling lip and kindling eye, and the simple gesture.
“I knew you would like it;” said Lucy just as quietly.
Miss Churchill looked over at them. Was she thinking of what Mrs. Endicott had said—how she kept young in her children’s lives? For Lucy’s face was like a girl’s again.