So now as they crowded out of the restaurant—it was the first one they had come to, and they had been too hungry to argue about its elegance or lack of it—and climbed into the cars again, Nan could hardly keep still in her eagerness to know the truth at once.
They passed down a short business street, and then, making a turn, came out on a broad country road.
"Sunny Slopes begins about a mile from here," said Mr. Mason. "It covers quite a bit of territory, I am told. While one end is quite barren, the other end is excellent for orange growing and is covered with bearing trees."
"Oh, dear, I hope Mrs. Bragley's end is the orange-growing end!" cried Nan.
"Don't be too much disappointed if it isn't," said Mrs. Mason kindly.
Suddenly Bess, who had been laughing and talking with Rhoda about school affairs, gave a little bounce and cried out excitedly:
"Look there! Isn't that an orange grove?"
"It surely is," Mr. Mason called back to her, adding in a voice that showed his rising excitement: "Your widow's property ought to be somewhere in here, Nan. I think I'll stop the car and we can go forward on foot."
"Oh!" said Nan softly, as, a moment later, she jumped out into the road. "I never saw an orange grove before. Isn't it wonderful!"
"Goodness!" said Bess, as Grace and Walter drew up behind the big car and ran around and joined them, "it looks as if they had all been drawn after the same pattern—the trees, I mean. Did you ever see anything so symmetrical in all your life?"