Genevieve drew a long breath. Her brown eyes were not clear.
"I reckon maybe I'll go and find—Aunt Julia," she said in a low voice.
The next moment her father sat alone on the back gallery.
CHAPTER IX
REDDY AND THE BRONCHO
There was no lack of interesting things to do that first day at the ranch. There was one half-hour, to be sure, when five of the Happy Hexagons sat a little quietly on the front gallery and tried to talk as if there were no such thing as a windmill, and no such person as a girl who could climb to the top of it; but after Genevieve and Mrs. Kennedy, arm in arm, came through the front door—with eyes indeed, a little misty, but with lips cheerfully smiling—every vestige of constraint fled. Genevieve, once more in her pretty linen frock, was again the alert little hostess, and very soon they were all off to inspect the flower garden, the vegetable garden, the cow corral, the sheds, the stables, and the blacksmith's shop, not forgetting Teresa, the cook, who was making tamales in the kitchen for them, nor Pepito, Genevieve's own horse that she rode before she went East.
"And we'll have the boys pick out some horses for you, too," cried Genevieve, smoothing Pepito's sleek coat in response to his welcoming whinny of delight. "I'm sure they can find something all right for us."
Tilly's eyes brightened, so, too, did Bertha's; but Cordelia spoke hastily, her eyes bent a bit distrustfully on the spirited little horse Genevieve was petting.