"'Daddy didn't know what would please you most,' Phil said, 'but I remembered the pleasure you used to take in old Washington out at the Wigwam, and Lloyd insisted that you would like a riding horse better than anything else. She rides every day herself, and was sure you would enjoy joining her on her gallops across country.'
"Well, by that time, being speechless, all I could do was to put my arms around the beautiful creature's satiny neck and cry a bit into her glossy mane. The sheer happiness of having so many of my cherished dreams come true all at once was too much for me. Her name was Silver-wings, but from that moment I called her Joy.
"All afternoon I kept discovering things. When we sat down to dinner that night, our first meal together (Lloyd had told May Lily exactly what to do), a lot of the silver was marked Tremont, for the doctor had divided all of Aunt Patricia's silver that came down from her grandfather's family equally among Elsie and Stuart and Phil. But there were some beautiful pieces from Lloyd and the old Colonel, and Mr. and Mrs. Sherman. Stuart and Eugenia had sent quantities of fine table linen.
"The last surprise of the day was the house-warming. Everybody had stayed away till then, to let us have time to 'spy out the land and possess it.' Lloyd and Rob were the first to come over, then Gay and Alex Shelby. They have just gone to housekeeping in the Lindsey cabin. Every old friend in the Valley came before the evening was over, and gave us a royal welcome, as warm and heartening as the blaze which we started in the big fireplace. When the Colonel went away he quoted from the Hanging of the Crane,
"'Oh, fortunate, oh, happy day
When a new household has its birth
Amid the myriad homes of earth.'
"He said that Green Acres had always been the synonym for whole-souled hospitality, but that we had even surpassed its best traditions.
"There isn't room for much more in this little book; only a few pages are left, so I can't crowd into it all the good times of the last two months, but I must make mention of the delightful rides I have had with Lloyd, and the times when she and Gay and I have spent the day together in good old Valley fashion. Just to be this near my Princess Winsome and to see her daily is a constant joy. She is lovelier and more winsome than she ever was before.
"I must put on record that I have proved what Mrs. Blythe said to be true about the light from happy home windows being the best guide for benighted travellers, and that social influence counts so greatly in the work we are trying to do. Already I am beginning to see that as Mistress of Green Acres I shall be able to accomplish far more than little Mary Ware ever did. Of course, that might not be possible if Phil were not in hearty sympathy with what I want to do. But he is thoroughly interested himself.
"The other night at the Moores I overheard him discussing Housing Reform with Judge Abbott of Lexington, as warmly as Mrs. Blythe could have done. Finally the whole dinner party took it up, and Mrs. Abbott said that her club had been interested in the subject for some time, and all they need is for some one to take the initiative. The Abbotts were staying several days with Lloyd and Rob, so next night I had them over here. After dinner I took them up into my 'Place of the Tryst.' Of course, I don't call it that to anybody but Phil, and he has dubbed it the Chamber of Horrors.
"It's just a big empty room up in one of the gables. There is nothing in it but a desk and a table and some chairs and the typewriter that I bought with the check which Jack sent me. But around the walls are copies of the photographs we used as posters in Riverville to arouse the public, and had hanging in the corridors of the State House all during the session of the Legislature. They are the very worst tenement views we could get, like that basement in Diamond Row, and some of the windowless rooms taken by flashlight.