“Yes, I’m one of the things she’s been decorating,” and he entered from the veranda, shook hands with Clarkson, and stood for inspection. “Don’t I look like a lamb decked 220 for the sacrifice? But faith it was the heart of a lion I needed to go into the moccasin dens where she sent me this day. The blossoms desired by your daughter were sure to grow in the wildest swamps.”
“I didn’t suppose a bog-trotter would object to that,” remarked the girl, to Loring’s decided amusement.
“Lena!” and at the look of horror on her mother’s face she fled to the veranda.
“Ah––Mrs. McVeigh, I’m not hurt at all, but if she had murthered me entirely your smile would give me new life again; it’s a guardian angel you are to me.”
“You do need assistance,” she replied, endeavoring to untwine the vines twisted about his shoulders, “now turn around.”
He did, spinning in top fashion, with extended arms, while Evilena smiled at the Judge from the window. His answering smile grew somewhat constrained as his hostess deliberately put her pretty arm half way around the young man’s shoulder in her efforts to untangle him.
“I say, Judge, isn’t it in fine luck I am?––the undoing of Delaven!”
But the Judge did not respond. He grew a trifle more ceremonious as he turned from the window.
“Mistress McVeigh, I shall step out on the lawn to meet my sister and Miss Loring, and when you have concluded your present task, would you permit me to see the autumn roses you were cultivating? As a lover of flowers I certainly have an interest in their progress.”
“Autumn roses––humph!” and Loring smiled in a grim way only discernible to Delaven, who had grown so accustomed to his sardonic comments on things in general that they no longer caused surprise.