The room in which she now sat was delightful. Everything was white, from the curtains of the bed to the chintz hangings on the walls. A rug of white fur was on the floor. The panellings and wooden shutters of the windows were painted white. The fireplace was set in glossy-white tiles, and its opening covered with a screen of white feathers. The windows were flung wide, and a great flood of white sunlight came pouring into the room. Lloyd herself was dressed in white, from the clean, crisp scarf tied about her neck to the tip of her canvas tennis shoes. And in all this array of white only the dull-red flame of her high-piled hair—in the sunshine glowing like burnished copper—set a vivid note of colour, the little strands and locks about her neck and ears coruscating as the breeze from the open windows stirred them.
The morning was veritably royal—still, cool, and odorous of woods and cattle and growing grass. A great sense of gayety, of exhilaration, was in the air. Lloyd was all in tune with it. While she wrote her left elbow rested on the table, and in her left hand she held a huge, green apple, unripe, sour, delicious beyond words, and into which she bit from time to time with the silent enjoyment of a school-girl.
Her letter was to Hattie's father, Mr. Campbell, and she wrote to ask if the little girl might not spend a week with her at Bannister. When the letter was finished and addressed she thrust it into her belt, and, putting on her hat, ran downstairs. Lewis had brought the dog-cart to the gate, and stood waiting in the road by Rox's head. But as Lloyd went down the brick-paved walk of the front yard Mrs. Applegate, who owned the farmhouse, and who was at once Lloyd's tenant, landlady, housekeeper, and cook, appeared on the porch of the house, the head of a fish in her hand, and Charley-Joe, the yellow tomcat, at her heels, eyeing her with painful intentness.
"Say, Miss Searight," she called, her forearm across her forehead to shade her eyes, the hand still holding the fish's head, "say, while you're out this morning will you keep an eye out for that dog of our'n—you know, Dan—the one with liver'n white spots? He's run off again—ain't seen him since yesterday noon. He gets away an' goes off fighting other dogs over the whole blessed county. There ain't a dog big 'r little within ten mile that Dan ain't licked. He'd sooner fight than he would eat, that dog."
"I will, I will," answered Lloyd, climbing to the high seat, "and if I find him I shall drag him back by the scruff of his neck. Good-morning, Lewis. Why have you put the overhead check on Rox?"
Lewis touched his cap.
"He feels his oats some this morning, and if he gets his lower jaw agin' his chest there's no holding of him, Miss—no holding of him in the world."
Lloyd gathered up the reins and spoke to the horse, and Lewis stood aside.
Rox promptly went up into the air on his hind legs, shaking his head with a great snort.
"Steady, you old pig," said Lloyd, calmly. "Soh, soh, who's trying to kill you?"