The two who have just entered the circle are Colonel Warlow and his wife, while the handsome youth of fifteen, with hazel eyes and auburn hair, which has a faint tinge of red, that accounts for the reputation he has earned within the Warlow circle, is Robbie, their youngest; while that golden-haired young Adonis, who, in a fit of grave abstraction, sits leaning against a tree, his white and tapering hands clasped about his knee, the firelight glimmering over a small and well-shaped boot resting on the round of his chair, is their oldest son, Clifford, whom we have met before; while Maud, their only daughter, is easily recognized as she flits about, busy and graceful.
Next we see the family of Squire Moreland, from the valley of the Merrimac—the squire himself being a representative Puritan, plain and grave; his wife, a type of the live and thorough-going New England woman, deeply imbued with the "thingness of is," able to discuss apples or algebra, beans or baptism, or in fact any subject down to zymology. Then Ralph, principally to be recommended for being "general good fellow." Next in their family is Scott, quiet and grave, addressed by Rob Warlow as the "Young Squire;" and their only daughter, Grace, in whose make-up there is more than a faint spice of the tomboy.
Colonel Warlow's family had left their old Missouri home, the tobacco and hemp plantation on which the children had all been born, and, having met the Morelands on their rout, bound for that indefinite region "out West," they had journeyed on together to this spot, attracted by Colonel Warlow's remembrance of its great beauty and natural fertility, which had deeply impressed him when he was here a quarter of a century before.
Learning, at Council Grove, that the valley was open to homestead entry, they had hastened on, miles ahead of other settlements, to locate here on a spot that was beyond the utmost limit of civilization.
Soon the hungry travelers were seated at the cloth that was spread on the downy buffalo-grass, and were partaking of the broiled quail and antelope steak, the appetizing odors of which now pervaded the whole camp; but as the company ranged themselves about the tempting repast, Maud and Grace retired to a seat by the fire, declaring as they did so, that they would not sacrifice their precious lives by sitting at a table with thirteen other sinners.
"Give us a song, then," cried some one from the table, at which Grace sprang up and brought Maud's guitar from the carriage, and soon the sweet strains,
"Oft in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chains have bound me,
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me,"
re-echoed through the tranquil valley. As Maud's tender soprano mingled with the luscious alto of Grace's voice the listeners almost forgot the tempting feast spread before them, and cries of "Bravo!" "Encore!" etc., greeted the close of the pathetic song, which was wholly lost, as to its sentiment, upon the younger members of the company.
"Pass the hat," cried Bob, whereupon Grace handed her sunshade around among the laughing group, but after inspecting the collection, she said with an air of contempt:—
"A wish-bone and five bread-crusts! Why, a prima donna would starve on such a meagre salary. I've a notion to play Herodias's daughter and dance off your heads;" and when Maud struck up a lively fandango, she shook her curls in a threatening manner, and then whirled off into an amazing waltz.