“Did it fall on her? and was she badly hurt?” asked Miss Keith, shuddering slightly as she spoke.
“No,” replied Mr. Dinsmore, “not quite upon her, but so nearly that she had a very narrow escape from being crushed by it; she was stunned and bruised, but that was all, and she was able to join in the sports of the next day.”[A]
“Mary, that was in the winter which your aunts Mildred and Annis spent here,” remarked Violet. “I suppose you have heard something of that?”
“Yes, I think I have,” said Miss Keith. “Cousin Percy and you, Cousin Horace, were babes at that time, were you not? I think you said a moment since.”
“I have been told that we were,” Mr. Dinsmore replied with a smile. “Now I think I have shown you about all the places in the house that are interesting from being connected with events in my sister’s life. Most of our friends are at present on the verandas or the lawn; shall we go out and join them?”
A prompt assent was given and he led the way. All the invited guests seemed to have arrived; even Dr. Conly, who had been somewhat delayed by professional duties, was there surrounded by the young people, who were all fond of him as both relative and physician. Calhoun, the Dinsmore girls, Evelyn Leland, Marian McAlpine, Lulu Raymond, Harold and Herbert Travilla formed another group; but Calhoun, on seeing Mary Keith approaching, left the others, advanced to meet her, and after exchanging with her a pleasant “Good-morning,” invited her to a stroll through the grounds, adding, “I presume you have hardly seen every part of them yet?”
“No,” she replied, as they sauntered on together, and went on to tell to what parts Violet had taken her.
“Ah,” he said, “I am glad the pleasure of showing the rest was left for me. It is a fine old place, and being a near relative of the owners I have seen much of it.”
“Yes, and I have been told that Roselands also is a fine old place,” she returned; “and was not it Cousin Elsie’s home at one time?”
“Yes; for several years before her father bought this place and fitted it up for a home for himself and her.”