“Home,” he repeated, curiously.
“Yes, we were all born down in New York,” answered Jean, looking south over the country landscape as though she could see Manhattan’s panoramic skyline rising like a mirage of beckoning promises. “I’m afraid that is home to me.”
Ralph was quiet while Jean was lost in her memories of her wonderful visit with Beth in New York. Suddenly she turned to Ralph.
“I’m very confused,” she said. “I really don’t know what I want. The only thing I am sure of is that I like you better than any boy I’ve ever met.” Jean hesitated a little over this admission. “When I’m here I long to be in New York, and when I was in New York I missed everybody and everything in the country very much.”
“You’re still very young, Jean, but with your level head I’m sure you’ll be able to make a decision soon. I, for one, am willing to wait,” said Ralph.
16. Future Plans
“It always seems to me,” said Becky, the first time she drove down with Billie to spend the day, “as if Maytime is a sort of fulfilled promise to us, after the winter and spring. When I was a girl, spring up here behaved itself. It was sweet and balmy and gentle, and now it’s turned into an uncertain young tomboy. The weather doesn’t really begin to settle until the middle of May, but when it does—” She drew in a deep breath and smiled. “Just look around you at the beauty it gives us.”
She sat out on the tree seat in the garden that sloped from the south side of the house. The terraces were a riot of spring bloom; tall gold and purple flags grew side by side with dainty columbine and narcissus. Along the stone walls white and purple lilacs flung their delicious perfume to every passing breeze. The old apple trees that straggled in uneven rows up through the hill pasture behind the barn had been transformed into gorgeous splashy masses of pink bloom against the tender green of young foliage.
“What’s Jean doing over there in the orchard?” Kit rose from her knees, her fingers grimy with the soil, her face flushed and warm from her labors, and answered her own question. “Why, she’s painting.”