"It's been a mighty nice morning," she said. "I wish Lucy could have been with us. She adores discovering old places like that and doing unexpected things. It almost spoiled my good times thinking of the wistful way she looked after us when we drove off."
"But she's married!" exclaimed Lloyd. "I shouldn't think she'd care for those things in quite the same way as she did before. I should think she'd rather stay with her husband."
"Bosh!" said Gay. "Being married doesn't change a person's disposition and make tame old hens out of lively little humming-birds. That's just what Lucy was, a dear little humming-bird, always in a flutter of doing and going; and you needn't tell me that she enjoys poking there at home with nobody but Jameson, as much as she would enjoy going out with us and doing things."
"But he's her husband!" insisted Lloyd, as if that term covered all that could be desired of human companionship. Then she hummed meaningly:
"'Hand in hand when our life was May,
Hand in hand when our hair is gray!'"
Gay shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "Oh, that Darby and Joan business is all right when your hair is gray, but Lucy is only a year older than I am, and Jameson doesn't interest himself in a single thing that she likes. He's devoted to her, so devoted he doesn't want her out of his sight; but it's the kind of devotion that has taught me a lesson. If ever I tie myself up that way it will not be while life is May. I'll have a good time first."
Lloyd had no answer for such heresy. She was going over in her mind the list of people from whom she had unconsciously taken her exalted impressions of married life: her mother and Papa Jack, the old Colonel and Amanthis, Doctor Shelby and Aunt Alicia, Rob's father and mother. She felt that Gay was mistaken. To be sure there were old Mr. and Mrs. Apwall, who quarrelled like cats and dogs, but somehow even they had given her the impression that they enjoyed their little encounters, and quarrelled to pass the time, rather than because they bore each other any ill-will. Then she reflected that these were all people of an older generation than Lucy, and maybe there was a difference in the times. Surely Gay must have good reason for speaking so feelingly. This was not the first time that she had spoken of Lucy with tears in her eyes, and when she did that, Lloyd, recalling Mammy Easter's tea-cups, was vaguely glad that it had been foretold that hers would be empty.
The old Colonel came back in a few minutes loud in his praise of the new horses, and to Lloyd's surprise, in high good humour with their owner. Evidently Leland had improved his opportunity and had exerted himself to make friends with the old Colonel, for to Lloyd's amazement he cordially insisted on Leland's considering The Locusts a second home as long as he should be in the Valley, and to come at any hour he chose. The latch-string would be out for him.
"I shall certainly avail myself of the privilege very soon," he responded, "for to-morrow I have the honour to begin giving Miss Lloyd lessons in Spanish. So few young ladies nowadays play the harp, that when one has the ability she owes it to the world to learn the Spanish songs. Don't you think so?"