The stables and outbuildings were well to the south of the mansion, and on that side were also the kitchen offices, which in this well-ordered establishment were as freely open to inspection as any other part of Miss Joanna’s “kingdom.”
“Ah! my dear! It is good of you to come so early! That is exactly what I like: plenty of time to do things neatly and completely.”
“But, dear Miss Brook! you are so quick and active I should think you would not ever take much time for anything! You are certainly twice as spry as I am!” responded Isabelle, surprised from her revery by the salutation of her white-haired neighbor.
“I don’t know about that! I don’t know about that! I do know that the only way of making haste which I understand is to take such thought beforehand that I rarely make one blundering movement. I have never had time, even in my long life, to ‘hurry,’ but I have managed to accomplish about all I have set out to do.”
“And I do try to ‘hurry,’ but never succeed! I am slow-motioned—a dreamer, my mother tells me; and once in a while I get so behind-hand that I put on steam and then—a smash up!”
“Give it up, my child, give it up at once. Learn to use forethought instead of haste and you’ll be thankful all your life for doing so. But, dearie me! how old lips do love to preach, and how distasteful it is to young ears to listen! No, no, my child. I do not think you are impatient. It is only that I remember so distinctly how I disliked to learn of anybody in this world—except Joanna Brook! But come in, come in. I have as many of these May roses as I think we can use. The others we will cut after these are in place. Did you ever see this earth more lovely than it is this very morning? Oh, what a God! what a loving, generous God!”
Isabelle looked up swiftly into the sweet old face before her. She was sometimes startled by these sudden outbursts of feeling on Miss Joanna’s part; a person who ordinarily never “preached,” but who seemed so full to overflowing of the love of God that her natural speech became, at times, as the speech of an alien.
“I suppose He is,” answered the girl, slowly.
Miss Brook darted a glance into the beautiful face of the girl, and opened her lips quickly; but the words she would have said she altered to the quiet remark: “If you do not know, but only ‘suppose,’ you will know some day. You would know now if it were His will. But come in. Let us begin at the front parlor first.”
They ascended the steps and entered the great hall, which ran through the main floor of the house from back to front. Each entrance door stood widely open, and the outlook either way was entrancing. Isabelle forgot to be regretful for her own privations in the enjoyment of that scene.