So just now, when this wonderful change was stealing over the country, Robert Strafford looked eagerly for the arrival of Hilda Lester, who had been engaged to him for more than three years, and who was at length able to break away from her home-ties and marry him; when there was a mystic glamour in the air, and a most caressing softness; when the lemon-trees were full of promise, and some of them full of plenty; when the little ranch, so carefully worked and so faithfully nursed, seemed at its very best, and well repaid Robert Strafford for his untiring labor.
He sat on the bench in front of his barn, smoking his pipe and glancing with pride at his little estate on the slope of the hill. He loved it so much, that he had learnt to think it even beautiful, and it was only now and then that he had any serious misgivings about the impression it would produce on any one unaccustomed to the South Californian scenery. But now he was seized with overwhelming doubt, and he took his pipe from his mouth, and covered his tired-looking face with his hands. Nellie, the white pointer, stirred uneasily, and then got up and rubbed herself against him.
“Dear old girl,” he said, caressing her. “You have such a faithful heart. I’m all right, old girl; I’m only down in the dumps a little.”
Suddenly the sound of horse’s hoofs was heard, and Nellie, barking loudly, darted down the hill, and then returned in triumph, now and again making jumps of greeting to Ben Overleigh’s pretty little chestnut mare Fanny.
Ben Overleigh swung off his horse, hitched her to the post, and turned quietly to his friend, who had not risen from the bench, but sat in the same listless position as before.
“Well, now,” said Ben Overleigh, sinking down beside him, “and I tell you, Bob, you’ve made a deucèd pretty little garden for her. That deaf old woman with the ear-trumpet has not grown finer violets than those yonder; and as for your roses, you could not find any better in Santa Barbara itself. I can’t say much for the grass-plot at present. It reminds me rather of a man’s bald head. But the creepers are just first rate, especially the ones I planted. And there isn’t a bonnier little ranch than yours in the whole neighbourhood. If my lemons were coming on as well as yours, nothing on earth should prevent me from stepping over to the dear old country for a few weeks.”
Robert Strafford looked up and smiled.
“The trees certainly are doing splendidly,” he said, with some pride. “I know I’ve given them the best part of my strength and time these last three years. There ought to be some return for that, oughtn’t there, Ben?”
Ben made no answer, but puffed at his pipe, and Robert Strafford continued:
“You see, Hilda and I had been engaged for some time, and things did not go well with me in the old country,—I couldn’t make my niche for myself like other fellows seem able to do,—and then there came that wretched illness of mine, which crippled all my best abilities for the time. So when at last I set to work again, I felt I must leave no stone unturned to grasp some kind of a success: here was a new life and a new material, and I vowed I would contrive something out of it for Hilda and myself.”