“Who ‘ours?’” demanded Mammy, her lips pursed up, and distrust in her eyes.
“Homer’s and mine! Homer! Isn’t that a name to inspire one? Fate must have ordained that he should bear such a name. Only a classic poet’s could be in harmony. It must be the purest, the best, the finest, the most perfect,” rhapsodized Eleanor.
Mammy looked at her a little anxiously, and asked:
“Isn’t yo’ better lay down on dat baid yonder? Yo’s been a bendin’ ober dose papers twell yo’ haid’s achin’, I’se feered.”
“Ah, no, Mammy, but think of it! To live in a Grecian dwelling! A perfect reproduction of an Athenian temple. With the fountain of Hippocrene in it’s center, from which a rill will flow murmuring all the day. Helicon’s harmonious stream. We shall call it Helicon Hall, and there we shall train the youthful mind to a deep appreciation of true beauty. In the central court, overroofed with glass and filled with tropical plants, will be our hearth stone, our altar, on either side of which will stand our lares and penates. Could any other mind have conceived this wonderful dream in this prosaic age? See, see our plans, Mammy? How clear, how concise, how graphic. Ah, I can picture it all—all.”
“Well den I cyant!” cried Mammy, losing patience, “and I don’ reckon yo’ Ma nor none ob de yethers kin. At any rate, I got sumpin else ter do ’sides standin’ hyar listenin’ at what I sets down as jist foolishness; an’ ef I was yo’ Ma I’d tell yo’ not ter go a-climbin’ up dat mountain no mo’ twell de wedder done cool off some,” and with this admonition Mammy left the dreamer to her dreams. But before we take a long leave of her, we will add, by the way, that in the course of time this dream crystallized into a large building, in the form of the Parthenon, wherein this modern Socrates, Professor Homer Forbes, and a charming Hypatia, his wife, led the minds of affluent youths, whose parents were willing to indulge them in such luxuries, along paths of learning literally flower-strewn. Reclining at length upon the green sward of the court of Helicon Hill, they drank in the words of wisdom falling from the lips of their preceptors. Eleanor had achieved her ideals: Homer Forbes his. What more could mortals ask?
And the lares and penates? Well, Jean was rather practical. Those old Greek fireside gods might be all very well in their way, but Greece had seen her day. In the present one there was a quaint little grinning “god of things, as they ought to be,” to which Jean pinned greater faith; and when, one beautiful April day, Homer Forbes and his bride returned from their wedding journey, and entered the inner court of Helicon Hall, where the (let us hope) sacred fire burned upon the hearth, the first thing upon which Eleanor’s eyes rested in these classic surroundings was “Billykin,” perched above the blazing logs.
And in the interval between that warm September day and the lighting of that hearth by loving hands for the home-coming of the idealists? Ah, life holds some sweet moments, and this old world is not such a bad one, after all. But we anticipate.
October came again, and all the world was beautiful in its golden haze. With Eleanor’s engagement to Homer Forbes, and her complete absorption in her demi-god, who had changed her plans so completely, her future so entirely, Eleanor plunged headlong into consummating his dreams so far as in her power lay. This left Constance largely to herself and her own plans. All had gone well with her, and, with the beginning of the social season in Riveredge and elsewhere, Constance’s business grew very brisk. She was kept busy from morning to evening. It was a wonderfully happy life for her. To be the chief support of her family, to give to her mother the thousand little luxuries she had known in earlier life, to give to Jean every possible advantage, both educational and social, and still have time to enjoy life at its heyday herself—why—surely, no more could be asked.
Mary and Fanny Willing were as happy and content as two girls well could be, and worked and sang from dawn to twilight. With the autumn even more help became necessary to keep abreast of the orders; and, through Hadyn, Constance secured the services of a man in whom Hadyn was deeply interested. He had known him in college days, but days of adversity had overtaken him, and for two years he had seemed to be the very toy of an adverse fate. In that interval his family had slipped into the Great Beyond, and the small nest-egg left him had been swept from him by the failure of the company in which it was invested, throwing Edward DeLaney upon his own resources.