“My own recipe, sir; they’re not to be equaled in all Virginia, sir,” and he was much disappointed when Ralph refused, and openly disgusted when young Tom said, “No, thank you, dad.”
However the old gentleman drank all three, not wishing to see such good things wasted, and his good humor soon returned.
“Tom hasn’t taken a single julep this September,” remarked Mrs. Bollup, with evident satisfaction; “I’m awfully glad he doesn’t.”
“Stuff,” snorted the old gentleman; “my juleps would never hurt any one.”
Tom colored and looked uneasy and changed the conversation.
There was yet another of the family who welcomed Ralph to Hampden Grove. She gave him a warm hand clasp, and with radiant face and eloquent eyes said: “I’m so glad you’re with us again, Ralph.” This was all, but it was enough.
Gladys Bollup has already been described. In the year since we have seen her she had grown and developed about as much as is to be expected in a girl of her age. A year ago her eyes had been deep blue, so assuredly they were not light brown or hazel or green now. She then was tall and slender, and still is. The time is coming when she will have lost her girlish figure, and her hair will be gray, but tell me, Himski, can you not in the bright happy youth of your long ago, recall to mind some girl who is even dearer now than she was then, though to-day gray hair has replaced the golden locks that once, in your mind at least, dazzled even the sun with its glory; has not the same face with the true heart illuminating it grown even more beautiful?
The truthful writer of these pages has not much to say of these two weeks that Ralph spent with the Bollups. Soon Dorothy complained that she didn’t see much of Ralph; he was always away with Tom in the mornings and he was forever taking long walks with Gladys in the afternoons and evenings. And in truth Dorothy was right, and she pouted because she wasn’t asked to go along, and thought her sister was “real mean.”
Ralph and Gladys would wander for miles down the path by the river bank; they strolled through the woods and across fields. They must have had much to talk of, but what it was all about I do not know. But one thing is certain, however interesting their talks may have been, they didn’t seem to tell the rest of the family of the subjects that so engrossed them.
As a faithful recorder of the doings of these young people I should pick out some night and record their conversation; and I should tell how the moon rose, or sank, of how fitful winds moaned and sighed, or of the balmy breezes that floated in from the beautiful majestic waters of the river James. And I should tell of the twinkling stars and of glorious cumulus clouds in the heavens overhead. But this would be imagination, which is not my forte. No doubt the stars twinkled, the winds must have blown, the leaves must have rustled on the tree branches pretty much as they did when you, Himski, went wandering about the woods with some pretty girl. But I cannot speak with exactness of these things however attractive or necessary they may be to a story, simply because they were not recorded at the time. However, we may be sure of one thing, that our friend Ralph had a most happy time at Hampden Grove, and that he and Gladys Bollup were fast friends as indeed he was with all the family.