Three loud thumps sounded on the door of Janice Day’s bedchamber and were quickly followed by an eager rattling of the doorknob.
“Janice! I say, Janice, ain’t you ever going to wake up?” came in a strong boyish voice. “Don’t you know this is the day for the great surprise?”
“Oh, Marty, so it is!” replied his cousin, sitting up very suddenly and throwing the covers aside. “How stupid of me to lie abed when the sun is up! I’ll be dressed and downstairs in a jiffy.”
“Thought maybe you didn’t care fer that surprise,” went on the boy dryly. “If you don’t want it, o’ course you can pass it over to me!”
“Why, the idea! I do want it, whatever it is, Marty. Oh, what can it be, do you think?”
“Don’t ask me!” returned the youth, and then cut an odd grimace, which of course nobody saw. “I’ll tell ’em you’ll be down by dinner time,” he added, and then turned and clumped noisily down the narrow farmhouse stairs.
Janice had already hopped out of bed. Now she made her way across the neatly-kept bedchamber to the wide-open window. Her eyes met a most beautiful world, and a new day—a day with all the dew upon it!
She was at the window which overlooked the slope of the hill on which Polktown was built, the sheltered cove below, and the expanse of the broad lake beyond. Janice never wearied of this view—especially at sunrise.
The stern old fortress, far away on a rocky promontory of the other shore of the lake, was decked out with darts of golden sunshine. Gold, too, fresh from the sun’s mint, was scattered along the pastures, woodlands and farms of that western shore as far north and south as her bright eyes could search.
And Janice Day’s eyes were bright. They were the hazel eyes of expectancy, of sympathy, of inquiry. In all her countenance, her eyes attracted and held one’s attention.