The second glance showed her father standing just behind him. They both leaned out and waved their hats as they passed the carriage. A moment later they were stepping off the car opposite the entrance gate, and waiting for her to come up.
"Anothah knight comes riding," she thought with a smile, wondering what put the whimsical notion in her head, for she did not count Jack in that class. He was simply her good comrade of the plains, nothing picturesque about him.
"I don't suppose there could be about the modern knight," she thought, amused that such fancies should come to her. "His only thought is to 'get there.' When young Lochinvar comes out of the West now, his 'steed is the best' from that standpoint, but you can't make the pictuahs and poems out of trolley-cars that you can out of hawses in those old-time fancy trappings."
Stepping out of the carriage, she sent it on ahead and turned to Jack with such a cordial welcome that he reddened with pleasure under the brown of his sunburned cheeks.
"This is my 'Promised Land' as well as Mary's," he said as they walked slowly towards the house, and he paused to look up at the grand old trees arching over them. "You've no idea how I've looked forward to seeing all this. Mother always pictured it as a sort of Beulah land. Then Joyce took up the same tune, and lastly Mary. She's the most enthusiastic of all, and sat up till midnight the day she found I was coming, to make a list of all the things she said I mustn't fail to see or ask about."
Taking a memorandum book from his pocket he opened it and held it out for Lloyd and her father to see. There were three pages whereon Mary had set down instructions for him to follow. Lloyd laughed as she glanced at the head-line.
THINGS TO DO WITHOUT FAIL
1 Make Mr. Rob Moore's acquaintance, and see Oaklea.
2 See The Beeches and all Mrs. Walton's curios, especially the bells of Luzon and mother-of-pearl fire-screen.
3 See if Elise Walton is as pretty as she used to be, and notice how she does her hair now.
4 Ask Lloyd to play on the harp and sing the Dove Song, when the candles are lighted in the drawing-room.
The list was such a long one that Lloyd did not read farther, but glanced at the page headed—