The first thing that startled the girls was her marked resemblance to the old oil painting at Calvert Hall. There was the same happy, inviting face, surrounded by little bobbing curls, and though the curls were gray now, you hardly noticed it, they formed so pretty a frame to the sweet, pink-tinted face.
“I’ve been looking for you every day, dears,” she said, kissing each one of the girls, as they slipped from their ponies to greet her. “And this is Isabel Lee, Phil Lee’s daughter. You have your father’s mouth and chin, dear. I knew him well. What did you say, Jeanie—Sue Warner? The Warners of Colebrook? Bless my heart, I have danced at many of your grandmother’s parties there, Sue. Ruth, and Edwina, I’m sure I’ve met some of your families too, for you both look familiar to me, although Sandy would declare it was the rose-colored glasses of memory I was using.” Tears sparkled on her lashes as she turned last of all to Polly. “Oh, my dear,” she said, tenderly, “do the lilies still bloom as fair at Glenwood as they did forty years ago? They were gold-colored with ruby hearts.”
Polly nodded her head eagerly.
“Uncle Peter told me you loved them. There’s just Uncle Peter and grandfather left now of the ones who can remember you at our place. Mandy and Aunty Welcome are both pretty young, you know.”
“I know,” laughed Mrs. Sandy. “Welcome must be about forty-five, isn’t she? And Mandy I don’t remember at all.”
“I’ll look after your horses, Jeanie,” Mr. MacDowell said. “You won’t do anything now but talk Queen’s Ferry, and it’s a bully thing that Mrs. MacDowell can at last.”
They went slowly up to the home that Sandy had built so many years ago for the home-coming of his bride. It was prettier than the other ranch houses the girls had seen, more like a bungalow. There was a deep foundation of gray rocks, and the porch was built on columns of the rock too, and crimson ramblers grew all over it just as they did South. There was a piano in the big living-room, and everywhere an indefinable touch of something that seemed alien to this great, happy-go-lucky new land: a quiet elegance and air of repose, something that made the girls think at once of the atmosphere of Calvert Hall.
“We have lots to tell you, dear,” exclaimed Peggie, reaching up to give Mrs. Sandy a hearty bear hug. “We’ve discovered something in old Zed’s gulch, and we’ve got a new name for Sandy.”
“The Chief,” Ted added.
“Hail to the Chief!” began Polly, merrily. “Doesn’t it suit him?”