“And I’ll ask Jane about the beds,” said mother, rising.
“And I’ll go treasure-hunting,” said I, pausing only long enough to snatch up my hat.
“Well, good luck, Biffkins,” Dick called after me, and started back toward the barn, leaving me alone at the front door, intent on the problem.
The first thing to do, I felt, was to make a survey of the house and grounds, and this I found to be no little task. Indeed, I soon became so absorbed in their beauty that I nearly forgot the puzzle I had set myself to solve. Let me describe the place as well as I can, and you will not wonder that, as the days went on, the prospect of losing it should become more and more dreadful to me.
The house was of red brick, square, in a style which I have since been told is Georgian. In the middle front was a portico, stone-floored, with four white columns supporting its roof, and with an iron railing curving along either side of its wide stone steps, five in number. The front door was heavily panelled, and bore a great brass knocker. A wide hall ran through the centre of the house, with the rooms opening from it on either side—large, square rooms, with lofty ceilings, and heated either by means of wide fire-places or Franklin stoves. But of the interior of the house I shall speak again—it was the exterior which first claimed my attention.
It stood well back from the road, in a grove of stately elms, which must have been planted at the time the house was built, nearly three quarters of a century before. A beautiful lawn, flanked by hedges of hardy shrubs, sloped down to the road, and to the right of the house, surrounded by a close-clipped hedge of box, was a flower garden laid out in a queer, formal fashion which I had never seen before. It looked desolate and neglected, but here and there the compelling sun of spring had brought out a tinge of green. Beyond the garden was a high brick wall, covered with vines, shutting us off from the view of our neighbours.
Back of the house was the kitchen garden, nearly an acre in extent, and surrounded by rows of raspberry and currant bushes. Along one side of it was a double grape-arbour, separating it from the orchard. Cherries and peaches were putting on their bridal robes of white and pink, and as I passed beneath their branches, drinking deep draughts of the fragrant air, I could hear the bees, just awakened from their winter sleep, busy among the petals. Near a sheltering wind-break, I caught the outline of a group of stables and other out-buildings, behind which stretched rolling fields, some green with winter wheat, some stubbly from last year’s corn, some brown and fallow, ready for the plow. A respect for grandaunt, which I had never had before, began to rise within me. Surely the owner of such a place as this could not be without her good qualities. To administer it must have taken thought and care, and simply to live in it must be, in a way, softening and uplifting. If Fate would only will that I might always live in it——
I heard the rattle of wheels on the road from the stables, and there was Dick, setting forth proudly on his trip to the station. He waved his cap to me, chirruped to the horse, with whom he seemed to be already on the friendliest of terms, and passed from sight around the house, while I turned again to the inspection of the premises. At the end of half an hour, I was fairly breathless with excitement; to be mistress of this splendid estate, this wide domain! what a thought! How could life ever lose its interest here, or days pass slowly!
“It isn’t ours,” I said aloud, suddenly chilled by the thought. “It isn’t ours. But I will make it ours!” And I shut my teeth tight together, and turned towards the flower-garden. No more idling or day-dreaming! Every minute must be spent in the search for the treasure—the “stocks, bonds, and other securities,” as the will described them, which grandaunt had concealed somewhere about the place—a hiding-place to which the only clue was the rose of Sharon!