Winnie and Inza, with Buck and Mr. Burrage, arrived the following day and found an enthusiastic lot of young men there at the Starbright homestead. Frank was the first to meet Inza, and he gave her hand a warm pressure, while telling her how glad he was that she had come.
“We’ll have a glorious time here,” he declared. “The finest old place in all New York! A billiard-room, a bowling-alley, a regular gymnasium—oh, but old Captain Starbright knew how to lay out his money to make an ideal home! And Dick’s mother—one of the gentlest mothers in the world. She’ll make you welcome, you may be sure.”
She did; she took the girls to her heart and said those things which only a woman like her would know how to say to make them feel how glad she was to see them. In a moment they were at their ease.
She shook hands with Buck and Mr. Burrage. Something she said to the young Westerner, giving Winnie a glance, brought the color to Buck’s face and made him throw back his shoulders and look very proud.
Browning, with his hunger abated, smoking a pipe, was comfortable and at his ease; but not even the sating of Ready’s hunger had toned him down. He was the same happy-go-lucky, talkative, joking chap.
“The happy family has assembled at last,” he proclaimed. “We’re all here, Mrs. Starbright, and now we’ll proceed to eat you out of house and home. Oh, we’ll have a good time reducing you to poverty! My! my! but I’m glad I came. Badger, you should have seen the old-fashioned plum pudding we had for supper last night. It was a peach! But I only got about half of it before Browning annihilated the other half.”
“Huah!” grunted Bruce. “Don’t try so hard to be funny.”
“Oh,” said Dashleigh, “some of Ready’s jokes last night were really and truly funny. They would have made a donkey laugh. Why, I actually laughed till I cried.”
Then Bert grew furiously red when everybody shouted, nor did his confusion abate when afterward Ready seriously addressed him as “The Donkey.”
Mrs. Starbright took charge of the girls. Mr. Burrage was very weary and retired to his room for a brief rest. After washing his face and hands and brushing his clothes, Buck was ready to be shown about the place, and Dick took charge of him.