He was tall and of commanding carriage and manner and attired immaculately. He was a polished man whose courtesy was effervescent. He wore the regulation broad-brimmed hat, white moustache and goatee, and while his thin face was florid, it was at once refined and intellectual. His hobby was horses bred in the purple, but there was an utter absence of horsey vulgarism about him, his very presence irradiating breeding and culture.
It was made convincingly clear, by every look and word and gesture, that the Colonel's stately maiden sister had fallen in love with Belle-Ann at first sight. The house was a great square structure and one could walk around its four sides on a broad, spacious porch. A wide hall ran through the center directly to the back. This roomy hall was appointed with massive, quaintly carved furniture of colonial design. The walls and ceilings throughout the house were paneled and frescoed in artistic and unique patterns and painted in harmonious tints that indicated taste of the highest order.
In the center of the hall, midway, was stationed a great fountain, some six feet in diameter, where the crystal drops rained down upon myriad fishes and the moss and coral-built submarine castle. Magnificent paintings and various rare statuary subjects and huge palms and foreign plants and flowers abounded on every hand. And the sweet notes of an enraptured mocking-bird came from somewhere mingled with the silvery tinkling melody of unseen music.
Profusely scattered about were pieces of odd furniture, strange bric-a-brac, curious pottery and miniature idols, relics collected from every quarter of the globe. Big Turkish couches and willow rockers and cane sofas with red and green velvet pads, and little upholstered stools and bamboo tables were everywhere. Mammoth gilt-framed mirrors reached from the floor to the ceiling, and the wide doors and windows were draped in various-colored portières and curtains of silk and velvet in gold brocade.
The great dining room was a spot that awed Belle-Ann with its intrinsic resplendence. The mahogany and the dazzling array of silver and mirrors and prismed chandeliers and greenery held this demure mountain girl entranced. She caught herself wondering what Lem would say, if he could look in upon her at this moment, and behold her dressed in "Blue-grass style," being entertained in this mystic realm of a grandee, the opulence of which even her own active fancy had never pictured.
After luncheon, the Colonel conducted his visitors to the stables where he pridefully exhibited a hundred or more blooded horses. Straggling groups of horses and colts were observable grazing in the rank pastures that stretched beyond as far as the eye could reach.
While en route through the stables, Belle-Ann thoughtlessly gave the party a scare. Colonel Tennytown had directed a hostler who followed the party to bring out a sorrel gelding of which he was especially proud. All of the compartments for the animals on one side were box-stalls. Before the man had time to bring forth the gelding, Belle-Ann noted an extra-high compartment built of heavy oak boards with an iron gate. Attracted by this, she stepped away from the others to see what this strong box-stall contained.
The girl beheld a most magnificent black stallion. An ardent lover of horses and naturally fearless, she was so delighted at sight of this proud, silken-coated animal, that she drew the iron pin and slipped inside with the horse. The animal stood for a moment as though deeply and curiously surprised at this effrontery. Then his fire-rimmed eyes flashed. His little ears lay flat to his head. With a snort, he started toward her. Belle-Ann advanced a step to meet him, and at sound of her voice the great beast paused and pricked up his ears. Talking to him the while, the girl walked unhesitatingly over to him and laid a hand gently upon his massive neck. The feel of his satiny body pulsing with salient power was a joy to Belle-Ann. The stallion nosed her clothing with mild little snorts. With soothing, coined horse-words, the girl ran her hand over him. She then lay one hand on his back and with the other slapped his side playfully. To this ticklish overture the horse responded instantly.
He reared on his hind legs. He clashed his bared teeth, he plunged, pawed the straw, and kicked and squealed. Belle-Ann stood perfectly still and laughed outright at his antics. Then the animal threw his ears back and his fore feet in the air and lunged toward her, only to pluck at her sleeve with his rough lips and push her gently with his shoulder, taking care not to tread upon her feet.
The sorrel gelding had been brought out and the Colonel was deeply engrossed in rehearsing his pedigree to Miss Worth and did not at the moment notice Belle-Ann's absence. The girl had her arms about the stallion's head and was smilingly engaged in scratching his ears, when Colonel Tennytown's white face appeared at the iron gate of the box-stall, together with that of the scared, shaky hostler.