Martine, pausing almost out of breath, noted with regret that her mother did not smile. A shadow crossed Mrs. Stratford's face.
"Mother does not like it here," thought Martine, "neither do I, but I must like it."
"Come, mother," she said aloud, taking her mother by the arm. "Wasn't it a good idea to have the walls of this dining-room painted blue? You see it gets so much sun, and this gives it the effect of coolness."
"I dislike oak furniture." Mrs. Stratford did not answer the question that Martine had put indirectly to her. Her attention was now centred on the ugly extension table and the uncomfortable chairs ranged stiffly around the wall.
"We'll have to put up with the chairs, I suppose, but I have a lovely old blue cotton curtain in one of the trunks that will hide the table and give the room any amount of style."
"You are trying to make the best of everything, my dear, and I dare say you are right. But the house is so much smaller and plainer than I remembered it, that I fear we shall hardly be comfortable."
"Oh, no; come, let me show you, already I have made ever so many plans;" and impressed by Martine's vivacious optimism, Mrs. Stratford at last began to see the pleasanter possibilities of the red cottage.
Martine was not deceiving either her mother or herself in pointing out the best side of things, and yet in her heart there was a certain disappointment in her first survey of "Red Knoll."
"We must have a name for the house," she had said the very afternoon of their arrival. "'Red Farm,' no, that isn't exactly the thing; 'Red Top,' no, the roof isn't red, and besides, that name has been used by some one else. 'Red Knoll'—there, why not, it combines the color of the house and the situation on a knoll—why not, mamma?" and as Mrs. Stratford had no adverse answer, Red Knoll it was from the beginning.
A house needs something besides a picturesque name to make it attractive even to an optimistic girl anxious to see the bright side of things.