“Very well; come down soon, and I’ll have it ready. Mr. Redfield, I’m sure, will want some.”
Virginia’s heart was dancing with delight of this home as she came down the stairs a little later. She found Mr. Redfield at the farther end of a long sitting-room, whose dim light was as restful (after the glare of the tawny plains) as the voice of her hostess was to her ears, which still ached with the noise of profane and vulgar speech.
Redfield heard her coming and met her half-way, and with stately ceremony showed her a seat. “I fear you will need something stronger than tea after my exhausting conversation.”
“I hope, Hugh, you were not in one of your talking moods?”
“I was, Eleanor. I talked incessantly, barring an occasional jolt of the machine.”
“You poor thing!” This to Virginia. “Truly you deserve a two hours’ rest before dinner, for our dinner is always a talk-fest, and to-night, with Senator Bridges here, it will be a convention.”
He turned to Virginia. “We were talking old times ‘before the war,’ and you know it never tires veterans to run over their ancient campaigns—does it, Lee Virginia?”
As they talked Mrs. Redfield studied the girl with increasing interest and favor, and soon got at her point of view. She even secured a little more of her story, which matched fairly well with the account her husband had given. Her prejudices were swept away, and she treated her young guest as one well-born and well-educated woman treats another.
At last she said: “We dress for dinner, but any frock you have will do. We are not ironclad in our rules. There will be some neighbors in, but it isn’t in any sense a ‘party.’”
Lee Virginia went to her room, borne high upon a new conception of the possibilities of the West. It was glorious to think that one could enjoy the refinement, the comfort of the East at the same time that one dwelt within the inspiring shadow of the range. She caught some prophetic hint in all this of the future age when each of these foot-hills would be peopled by those to whom cleanliness of mind and grace of body were habitual. Standing on the little balcony which filled the front of her windows, she looked away at the towering heights, smoky purple against a sky of burning gold, and her eyes expanded like those of the young eagle when about to launch himself upon the sunset wind.