"I beg your pardon, my name is Johnston,—Percy Johnston—" he said with some embarrassment and hesitation, realizing from her speech and manner that he was not addressing a servant.
"No pardon is needed for that name," she interrupted; "Johnston is a name we're mighty proud of here in the South."
"But I am from the West," he said.
"We're proud of the West, too; and you should feel right welcome here, for this is 'Westover,'" waving her hand toward the inroad fields surrounding the old mansion house. "I am Mrs. West, or at least I used to be. Perhaps the title better belongs to my son's wife at the present time; while I am mother, grandma, and great-grandmother.
"Yes, Sir, you will be very welcome to share our home for a few days if you wish; and we'll take you as a boarder. We used to entertain my husband's friends from Richmond,—and from Washington, too, before the sixties; but since then we have grown poor, and of late years we take some summer boarders. They have all returned to the city, however, the last of them having left only yesterday; so you can have as many rooms as you like.
"Adelaide!" she called.
A rugged girl of seventeen entered the hall from a rear room.
"This is my granddaughter, Adelaide, Mr. Johnston."
Percy looked into her eyes for an instant; then her lashes dropped. He remembered afterward that they were like her grandmother's, and he found himself repeating, "The eye is the window of the soul."
"My Dear, will you ask Wilkes to show Mr. Johnston to the southwest room, and to put a fire in the grate and warm water in the pitcher?"