"Mary is right," agreed Mrs. Ware, smiling at Norman's grimace. "I think it would be a good thing to ask him to stop when you come back from your ride and have breakfast with us."
Norman groaned, then said with a vigorous nod of the head, since his hands were too busy with the skein for gestures, "Well, have him if you want to, but I'll give you fair warning, Mary Ware, if you go to getting off any of your Uncle Jerry remarks on me for his benefit, I'll let the cat right out of the bag."
Mary replied with a grimace so much like his own, that it brought on a contest in which the yarn winding was laid aside for a time, while they stood before a mirror, each trying to outdo the other in making grotesque faces.
Two mornings after that, in Joyce's khaki riding-suit and the new red Tam-O'-Shanter, Mary swung into the saddle while Pink held both horses, and they were off for an early gallop in the frosty October dawn. The crisp, tingling air of the mountains brought such color into Mary's face, and such buoyancy into her spirits that Pink watched her as he would have watched some rare kind of a bird, skimming along beside him. He had never known such a girl. There was not a particle of coquetry in her attitude towards him. She didn't glance up with pretty appealing side-glances as Sara Downs did, or say little personal things which naturally called for compliments in reply. She was like a boy in her straightforward plain dealing with him, her joking banter, her keen interest in the mountain life and her knowledge of wood lore. One never knew which way her quick-winged thoughts might dart. As they rode on he began to feel as if he was thoroughly awake for the first time in his life.
Up to this time he had been fairly well satisfied with himself. A small inheritance safely invested and his one year at college had given him the prestige of a person of both wealth and education in the little town where he had lived until recently. Yet there was Jack, who had not even finished a High School course, and Mary, who had had less than a year at Warwick Hall, on such amazing terms of intimacy with a world outside of his ken, that he felt illiterate and untutored beside them. Even Norman seemed to have a wider horizon than himself, and he wondered what made the difference.
He divined the reason afterward when they came back from their ride and sat at breakfast in the sunny dining-room. It was Mrs. Ware who had lifted their life out of the ordinary by the force of her rare personality. Through all their poverty and trouble and hard times she had kept fast hold on her early standards of refinement and culture, and made them a part of her family's daily living.
Pink felt the difference, even in the breakfast. It was no better than the one he would have had at home, but at home there would have been no interesting conversation, no glowing bit of color in the centre of the table like this bowl of autumn leaves and berries. At home there would have been no attempt at any pleasing effect in the dainty serving of courses. There ham was ham and eggs were eggs, and it made no difference how they were slapped on to the table, so long as they were well cooked. There, meal-time was merely a time to satisfy one's appetite as quickly as possible and hurry away from the table as soon as the food was devoured. Here, the day seemed to take its key-note from the illuminated text of a calendar hanging beside the fireplace. It was a part of The Salutation of the Dawn from the Sanskrit:
"For yesterday is but a dream,
And to-morrow is only a vision;
But to-day well-lived, makes
Every yesterday a dream of happiness
And every to-morrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn."
The Ware breakfast-table seemed to be the place where they all gathered to get a good start for the day. It was Mrs. Ware who gave it, and gave it unconsciously, not so much by what she said, as what she was. One felt her hopefulness, her serenity of soul, as one feels the cheer of a warm hearthstone.
Pink could not recall one word she had said to stimulate his ambition, but when he rode away on one horse, leading the other, he was trying to adjust himself to a new set of standards. He felt that there was something to live for besides taking in dimes over the counter of a country store. One thing happened at breakfast which made him glow with pleasure whenever he thought of it. It was the quick look of approval which Mary flashed him when he answered one of her sallies by a quotation about green spectacles.