“We are in for a storm,” he said. “It is making straight for this part from Grevilles Mountain. But I hope it won’t come to-night. It will be a poor welcome to Bob’s wife, though it’s about time now for the land to have a thorough good drenching.”
He looked at the pretty valley with its belt of trees, seen at its best from the hill where Robert’s house was built. At all times of the year, there was that green stretch yonder of clustering trees, nestling near the foothills, which in their turn seemed to nestle up to the rugged mountains.
“Yes,” he said, as he turned away, “those trees make one home-sick for a wooded country. These wonderful ranges of mountains and these hills are all very well in their way, and one learns to love them tremendously, but one longs for the trees. And yet when Jesse Holles went north and came back again, he said he was glad to see the barren mountains once more. I wonder what the girl will think of it all, and how she will take to the life. The women suffer miseries of home-sickness.”
He stood thinking a while, and there was an expression of great sadness on his face.
“My own little sweetheart would have pined out here,” he said softly; “I can bear the loneliness, but I could not have borne hers. Poor old Bob,” he said regretfully, “I almost wish he had not sent for her: it is such a risk in this land. I don’t wonder he is anxious.”
He glanced again at the threatening clouds, and went back to the house, took off his coat, turned up his sleeves, and began the preparations for the evening meal. He laid the cloth, changed the flowers several times before they smiled to his satisfaction, and polished the knives and forks. He brought in some logs of wood and some sumac-roots, made a fire, and blew it up with the bellows.
“BEN LIT THE LANTERN, AND STATIONED HIMSELF
OUTSIDE WITH IT.”
Suddenly the frail little frame-house was shaken by a heavy gust of wind; and when the shock had passed, every board creaked and quivered. Nellie got up from her warm place near the fire, and stalked about uneasily.