Grace would have been perfectly justified, however, in indulging in day-dreams in such a place; for a more elegant apartment, or one where greater taste was evinced in every detail of adornment, was rarely to be seen in the West.
It was situated at the south end of the upper hall, and opened out upon the balcony by a door of plate glass, thick and beveled, through which could be seen the flashing fountain on the terrace below and a landscape of surpassing beauty. The wooded stream wound away down the prairie valley, which was dotted with innumerable ricks of wild-hay; the white stone walls which fenced the ranch ran far out onto the highlands, dimly defining the boundaries of the great estate.
The walls of the elegant apartment were draped with and paneled by carmine and cream colored silk, relieved by lines of white. A carpet of creamy velvet was strewn with moss-roses of the same shade of carmine, with all the furniture upholstered to correspond. The walls were graced—not crowded—by a tall beveled mirror of French plate and some delicious paintings, framed in gilt. The low mantel was of Italian marble, white, dappled and veined with red shading to faintest rose. Vases of Sevres china, statuettes of bronze, and elegantly bound volumes were seen on every hand. There was a table of mosaic, on which was a basket of fancy-work, that, Miss Estill said, was destined never to be finished. Through the draped doorway, on the east, could be seen the snowy, lace-canopied bed of the mistress of all this splendor. The sunlight, sifting through the tops of the elms which grew below the terrace, shone in fitful bars of amber on a picture which was riveting the attention of Maud, who sprang up from her velvet chair and cried with enthusiasm:—
"Oh Grace! it is 'Sunset on the Smoky Hill,' don't you see the Iron Mound looming up with vague mystery? The serpentine river, fringed by trees, is the Saline; and there, winding down from the north, is the stately Solomon; while here at our feet flows the Smoky Hill between its timbered banks. See that white blot, far out to the east, rising in the evening mirage,—it must be Fort Riley! There is Abilene; and all along the wide prairie valley, flanked by bold grassy headlands, are white villages and golden fields of wheat. Here, nestling down in the broad valley among the groves at the base of the Iron Mound, is Salina—which reminds me of Damascus, with its rivers of Abana and Pharpar. Out to the south-west see that long line of purple, jagged buttes, over which eternally hovers a smoky haze,—those are the Smoky Hills! Look at the twilight stealing down through their gorges. Oh, it is like a glimpse of heaven! Mora—Mora! who could have painted this?" she said, with tears of genuine emotion. Then seeing Miss Estill blushing hotly, she and Grace impulsively kissed the young artist—Maud saying with a little quaver of emotion:—
"Mora Estill, you dear, gifted creature—do you know that you are a genius?"
"I am not so certain of that, for I am often led to believe in Hugh's criticisms. He says that my best pictures are very similar in appearance to a newly flayed beef's-hide." Then, as the others gave vent to shrieks of feminine amazement, Miss Estill continued merrily: "I had a letter from him yesterday. He is at Kansas City, you know. Would you believe it?—he sent an order for me to paint the sign for a butcher's shop. The aggravating fellow charged me, carefully, to put a sufficient number of limbs on the figure of a cow that was to adorn the sign. Then he proceeded with a whole page of caution, in which he charged me to avoid the fatal error of painting claws upon the animal's hoofs. There followed a long homily, showing the dire results of such a slight mistake—the innuendo and sarcasm, the cold suspicion and cruel neglect, that would alight upon the head of a butcher who was suspected of making beef of an animal that wore claws.
"This picture of Lake Inman," said Miss Estill, as the laughing group moved forward to where a beautiful painting hung, "Hugh persists in calling 'The Knot Hole;' and in his letter he said that as to the horns of the animal which was to adorn the sign, they were a matter of indifference to the public, and I could keep them for the trunks of the 'stately elms' in my next landscape, and I might transplant them with great success to the shores of Lake Inman, which you see is badly in need of shade."
"I'd just like to teach him," said Grace, inadvertently; but seeing the amused look which Maud shot at Miss Estill she hesitated with a blush, while Mora quickly exclaimed:—
"Oh, I believe he is beginning to learn of late; but I hope you will give him a lesson in poetry, for I found an effusion among his papers, where he had evidently forgotten it, that will bear a great deal of revision;" and she took from a bronze cabinet a paper whereon was written, in lame and halting couplets, an apostrophe "To My Love."
But the author had failed so signally to secure either rhyme or measure, that the girls shrieked aloud as Mora read long verses of the most trivial nonsense and doggerel, where "golden tresses," "had went," and "blue eyes" were mingled with loving ardor, but very bad grammar.