Miss Zillah made it known that they were not content to remain in their riding clothes, and Mrs. Rowantree offered their apologies to her husband with pretty ceremony.
“The ladies wish to be excused, my dear,” she said. “They have to make themselves more acceptable to the gentlemen.” She contrived to include Keefe in the little bow she swept them. So the four ladies were off up a stairway designed for a magnificent hand rail, but having nothing better in the way of a balustrade than a stout rope strung through posts.
Upstairs the appearance of things was even more bare and unsettled than below. The room to which they were taken was that occupied, apparently, by Mr. and Mrs. Rowantree, and here was almost nothing in the way of furniture beyond the beds and a most elaborate dressing case belonging to Rowantree himself, spread out on a table before a triplicate mirror. Opposite it stood another table above which hung a very small mirror, where, it was evident by the meager little feminine articles, Mary Cecily Rowantree made her toilet. The celluloid brushes were in great contrast to the gold-stoppered, tortoise shell contrivances in Mr. Rowantree’s case.
While the white frocks were being put on, Mrs. Rowantree lent a hand with deftness and gayety. She delighted in Carin’s golden hair and in Aunt Zillah’s beautiful silver curls. She said Azalea was like a rose, and that Constance had done nothing but talk of her since the day on the train.
“The children,” said Mrs. Rowantree, “are in the nursery waiting impatiently to see you.” It appeared that every bare room in the great unfinished house had its name.
When they all rustled down in their white gowns, Mr. Rowantree greeted them magnificently at the foot of the stairs.
“Have the children brought, my dear,” he said to his wife. “They naturally are eager to be released.”
From his tone one would have expected the children to enter accompanied by at least a governess and a nurse, but it was the little proud mother herself who brought in Gerald—“my eldest son, Miss Pace,”—and Moira and Michael—“my darling twins, young ladies,”—and led by the hand that wise young person, Constance, who flew like a bird to Azalea’s arms.
“She’s like myself,” said Mrs. Rowantree, “fierce in her affections.”
Azalea laughed. “Oh, so am I,” she said. “Mr. McBirney, my adopted father, always tells me that. He wants me to be calm, but I can’t stay calm.”