"And I was so sleepy," Hazel continued, "that every time I stopped to rest my arms a moment I found myself nodding, with the towel in my lap."
"Didn't you have a bad cold the next day?" Phyllis asked.
"No, I never catch cold," Hazel answered. "It is being so much in the open air, I suppose."
The dressing-table, too, was never to block a window and obscure the view in Hazel's room; and there must always be flowers upon it. Having ascertained that all was to her liking, Phyllis and Doris fared forth to the garden gate, rightly judging that, had their brother found Hazel ready to accompany him, the two must long ere this have made their appearance.
It was a pretty view that stretched away before The Beeches. As they stood at the entrance gate, which faced the road, the girls looked upon a wide, sunny tract of undulating common ground, ablaze with yellow gorse. Trending toward the west in long dark line was a ridge of fir-trees sharply defined and almost black against the even blue of the sky, but merging into soft and softer gradations of consistency and colour on the wood's southern extremity, its outline finally well-nigh lost in a mist of feathery larches. To the east was a low range of hills with brown, thatched, and red-tiled cottages and farmhouses dotted at intervals at its base, whilst a rivulet that flowed past the Travers's estate, forming indeed the boundary on its right flank, wended its way in and out, twisting and twining, a white ribbon shot with sunlight, till lost to sight in the valley.
And there, round the bend came the trap. Hazel, perched high, her hands encased in Digby Travers's thick gloves, was driving, to her own evident delight and self-importance, having successfully eluded her companion's practically demonstrated teaching by declaring that she did not care what was the orthodox way of manipulating the reins; that she and the horse understood one another well enough.
Hazel was delighted with her room, and had no suggestions to offer respecting any change in the position of its furniture. Everything was perfect, she frankly told her gratified friends. Her quick eye had lighted upon a tiny escritoire standing in one corner, and a thought flashed into her mind, an idea as novel to her as it was pleasing. She grasped the delightful idea, seized upon it, and stowed it carefully away in a corner of her brain, until such time as she should have leisure to look into the alluring possibilities it suggested—to cogitate without fear of interruption.
Just now, with very active assistance from Doris and Phyllis, Hazel was removing the dust of travel from her person.
When the three girls descended to the dining-room for luncheon, they found the rest of the family already there assembled; and Hazel received a warm kiss from the motherly Mrs. Travers, whilst Mr. Travers took her right hand, and Francis possessed himself of her left; Doris and Phyllis hovered about her; Digby looked on approvingly. Having been thus duly welcomed and received into the bosom of the family, Hazel, as the party seated themselves around the table, addressed herself to Francis.
"Well, farmer," she said, with bonne camaraderie, "and how are the crops?"