The colonel was asleep in a hammock, which was slung in the latticed porch, and his placid wife sat near, reading the Bible, as she rocked softly in the easy-chair. Clifford, clad in a cool white suit, was reading also; but I fear the work, in which he was so absorbed that he had not seen the approaching guests, was not of such a sacred nature as befitted the Lord's-day. Maud and Bob, swinging in a swing which was fastened to the limbs of the great elm, were likewise perusing the pages of some entertaining book, which Maud dropped with a little feminine squeak of delight as she saw her friends; then she flew down the path, and greeted the new-comers with unfeigned pleasure.
As she kissed Miss Estill and Grace in true girlish fashion, Rob, the handsome rogue, came forward and gravely offered to salute the ladies in the same manner; but his cordial advances were declined with thanks, whereupon he turned to the young men of the party and kissed them effusively, amid their merry peals of laughter at his sly way of ridiculing the feminine mode of greeting.
Mrs. Marlow said in her low, sweet voice, as she led the guests into the house, after they had been presented in due form by Clifford,—
"It is very kind of you, hunting us up this lonesome afternoon."
"We should have done so long before this if we had known what very agreeable neighbors lived so near," replied young Estill.
"You will smile, possibly, at our thinking twelve miles a neighborly distance, Mrs. Warlow, but I assure you it seems only a trifle when we remember that for years we have considered the people of Abilene and Lawrence our neighbors," said Miss Estill as she sank into an easy-chair, after Maud had relieved her of the jaunty black hat with its drooping white plume.
"We will freely forgive you, Miss Estill, if you will atone for your past neglect," said Mrs. Warlow, with a pleased smile. "The lack of society has been the greatest privation attending our Western life, and but for the unvarying kindness and sympathy of Squire Moreland's family, I fear we should have found it quite monotonous."
The room where they were seated was a wide, many-windowed apartment, with cool lace curtains sweeping the dark, rich carpet. The walls were graced by a few pictures and portraits, and on the brackets of walnut and mahogany were vases of wild-flowers. A wide bay-window at one end was half screened by the curtains of lace, and through their filmy meshes could be seen the cherished geraniums and fuchsias that were so dear to Maud as a memento of the old Missouri home. A great beveled mirror, framed in heavy gilt moulding, reached from the mantel to the ceiling; and strangest sight in this Western land was a wide fire-place; but instead of the glowing coals and crackling flames which one always associates with the hearth-stone, there were banks of blooming plants. The rich old piano and Maud's guitar occupied one corner, and a low, velvet divan the other, on each side of the mantel. It was a room which, Miss Estill and her brother perceived, was redolent with the refinement and harmony of the family, as simply elegant and devoid of sham and pretense as its owners.
Miss Estill gave a sigh of gratification as her glance swept the apartment, and rested out on the shady, well-kept lawn, where the hum of bees and songs of wild-birds seemed so wholly in keeping with the tone of happiness and industry which pervaded the Warlow household.
"How strange it seems that you have been here so short a time! It is almost like enchantment—this evolving such a perfect home from the wild, lonesome prairies and tangled woodland, where the wolf and buffalo roamed unmolested not two short years ago."