"No, thank you. I shall be better for the ride."
"Captain McGuffy, you must remember your pupil is rather inexperienced," he said, uneasily, as the captain mounted and rode up beside me. "Madge has not been used for some time, and she is feeling very fine."
"No danger," said the captain, as, followed by Phil, we trotted rapidly down the avenue. There must have been a touch of human intelligence and sympathy in Madge; she was burning to be off on a mad race across the country; she was fairly throbbing with impatience; my weak grasp upon her bridle she could have thrown off with one toss of her arched neck; but, quivering with life and fire as she was, she restrained her pace to suit my fears, and minded my slightest touch, with more than human gentleness. By degrees, I came to realize this, and reassured and emboldened, I sat more firmly and rode less timidly. The cool air of the morning braced and strengthened my nerves; I could hardly have believed that I could have felt so differently in so short a time, and every foot of ground we put between us and Rutledge, seemed to distance just so far my anxiety and wretchedness. My companions amused themselves, and thought they were amusing me, by reminiscences of military adventures, frontier experiences, and camp life; which served to keep them occupied, and give me time to rest and recover myself. When we rode into the lodge gate at Windy Hill, I was indeed so much better for my ride, that even Phil noticed the change in my expression.
"You ought to have ridden every day while we have been here. You must ride to-morrow by all means."
We were the first of the party to arrive, and had been seated in the parlor some minutes, enjoying the prattle of the Misses Mason, before the others drove up. All were made hugely welcome. One is surest of appreciation, socially, in a visit to a lonely country place, where visitors are at a premium, and where there are pining young daughters, and unemployed young sons, and a hospitable head of the family, to swell the note of welcome. All these elements of hospitality we found at Windy Hill; never were guests more welcome, and the only doubt seemed to be, whether we should ever be allowed to go. Lunch did not suffice, we must stay to dinner. Mason père said it should be so, and Mason fils ordered the carriage away, and the horses taken out. Mrs. Churchill pleaded our toilets, but was overruled. Mr. Rutledge advanced the necessity for our visit at Beech Grove as an obstacle. That should be no objection. After dinner the young people should join us, and we could all go together. There being really no reason why we should not accept this hospitality, it was at last decided we should remain. The morning slipped away very fast; there was a great deal to be seen about the place; fine views and pretty walks on every hand, outside, and a library and picture-gallery full of interest within. New merchandisable interest, that is. The Masons had just returned from Europe, and had brought with them whatever had been procurable for money, unbacked by taste or judgment. The result was, a good many pictures in rather questionable taste, but framed and hung unexceptionably; a great deal of so-so statuary, engravings bought by the portfolio, and "gems of art," bearing about the same relation to high art, that the contents of some jeweller's show-case, in Chatham street, bears to the Koh-i-noor. My particular friend, the younger Mr. Mason, attended me through the library and picture-gallery; and though the names of the pictures and the prices of the books seemed to be the items that he was most familiar with, I could not but admire the grasp of mind that could master and retain such dry statistics. By the time that dinner was announced, I felt that we had earned it, so much listening, looking, admiring had we done.
Dinner at the Masons' was never a brief meal; the master of the house had known too much of short commons in his boyhood, and eighteen-penny lunches at second-rate eating-houses during his clerkship, not to place a full value upon the luxuries of the table; and on the present occasion nothing was wanting to make it an elaborate and elegant repast, honorable to guests and entertainers. It was five o'clock before we left the table, and fully six before we were in the saddle. The ride to Beech Grove occupied another hour; a mere call, of course, was impossible. We were quite as cordially, though rather less enthusiastically, welcomed by Mr. Emerson and his black-eyed daughter; the horses were again sent away, and we were told to consider ourselves prisoners for the evening. Not a very dreary and insupportable prison, certainly, we were condemned to. Beech Grove was a lovely spot; the house, about one-third the size of the one we had just left, was a gem in point of architectural beauty and tasteful decoration. Cultivation and refinement spoke at every turn—choice pictures, rare books, exquisite bronzes, were the natural and unobtrusive furniture of the rooms; one was not called upon to admire by anything more demonstrative than quiet enjoyment and ease. It was the atmosphere of the place that one was to revel in; and no obligation existed to analyze its component parts.
The realization of the speedy termination of our pleasant intercourse, at least for the present, gave a very natural charm to the evening, and made it a very prolonged and happy one. At least, to those of us who had not forgotten how to be happy; for me, I could hardly remember when I had not been wretched, so agonizingly long and miserable had the past fortnight been, and so strongly had it marked itself on my memory. I looked with a kind of wonder at the light-heartedness of my companions. Was it possible I had ever found anything to laugh at in such things as called forth their merriment, or anything to stir my anger in their puerile slights and taunts? Grace was vexed by my indifference, and tried, with no contemptible ingenuity, to irritate me; and Josephine and Ella too, resented my determined appropriation of their beaux. I was too listless though, at last they found, to make it pay to tease me; so, by degrees, they dropped off and left me. Even Mr. Mason, it was evident, was beginning to think that he had overrated my spirit, and the captain, that my overtures of the morning did not mean quite so much, after all, as he had flattered himself. Miss Emerson, who was a nice, bright girl, not in the least afraid of herself or of any one else, and with whom one felt intimate after half an hour's acquaintance, ran up to me and asked me sotto voce, if it didn't bore me to death to have that man talk to me; she was sure I looked tired, and she meant to relieve me; so, with some clever excuse, in a few minutes she hurried me off to the library, made me lie on the sofa while she sat beside me, and chatted with me in her peculiarly piquant and amusing manner. It was very nice and comfortable to be treated so; but I could not help wondering what her other guests would think of her for absenting herself from them so much. It was a matter of very little moment to Miss Janet, however, what any one but "Papa" thought of her, and she was sure of a tender judgment from him always; but at last it seemed to strike her that even he might consider it rather negligent to leave the parlor so long, so springing up, she said:
"I must go back to those people; but remember, you are not to stir; or, yes, you may sit here by the table, and look over these engravings. You are not fit to be dragged about making visits; they're a set of heathens to make you go. I know you hate it. What is the matter, really, now?" she said, abruptly, stooping over me, and fixing her black eyes on my face. "You don't look like the same girl latterly. If I hadn't known you before, I should have thought you were tiresome and mopish and had no spirit. I like you better than your French cousins, and I wish you'd come and stay with me. Won't you? I'll make Papa coax Mrs. Churchill to let you stay after they go."
I shook my head and sighed.
"You look as if it were no use to talk about it; but I don't give it up, though I must go to the parlor. I shall come back and look after you every little while, and I'm going to send some one to entertain you while I'm gone."