They were all a little tired after walking about the house for so long a time, and those of them who had chairs leaned back with satisfaction and looked over the low parapet to the adjoining meadow with its brook and its cluster of woods at the upper end. Beyond the fields the Emersons’ house could be seen dimly through the trees.
“We wondered in the springtime whether we should be able to see this house from Grandfather’s house,” said Ethel Brown. “I haven’t looked lately, but I guess we can, or else we shouldn’t be able to see Grandfather’s house from here.”
“The line of those far-away mountains is very beautiful against the sky,” Miss Graham noticed, with her keen observation of everything that added to the loveliness of the landscape.
“They are far enough away to have a blue haze hanging over them,” said Mrs. Smith, “and they give you a feeling that our quiet country scene here has a great deal of variety after all.”
“Your house is admirably placed to make the most of every beauty around you,” said Miss Daisy, “and I hope you’ll allow me to compliment you on the way it is turning out. You know they say that you have to build two or three houses in order to build one exactly to your satisfaction, but I should think that you were almost accomplishing that with your first attempt.”
“I am glad you like so many things about it,” said Mrs. Smith. “Dorothy and I would be pleased with almost any house that really belonged to us, for we’ve had nothing of our own for many years, but of course it is a tremendous satisfaction to have this develop into something that is beautiful and livable too.”
“You’ve added so many happy touches,” said Miss Graham. “Take for instance this terrace. A brick terrace always makes me think of some old country house in England, with its dark red walls buried among the brilliant green foliage. So many of those houses have terraces like this, partly roofed like yours, and wide enough to be really an extra room.”
“Aunt Louise’s terrace is really two extra rooms,” said Ethel Blue, “because it opens from the drawing room and also from the dining room.”
“We’re going to have all our meals out here in pleasant weather, whenever it’s warm enough,” said Dorothy.
“I can see you’re sufficiently afraid of New Jersey mosquitoes to have a part screened.”