Herz kept up his walks with Douglas, although the girl did nothing to encourage him. She did everything to discourage him, in fact, except actually ask him to let her alone. She would find him waiting on the road after school. Sometimes he would even come to the school door for her if for any reason she was detained. These walks were usually taken when the count was off on one of his many business trips.
In Virginia, March means spring, although sometimes a very blustering spring. If one wanders in the woods it is quite usual to find hepatica and arbutus making their way up through the leaves. The tender green begins to make its appearance on hedge and tree, and in the old gardens jonquils and daffodils and crocuses pop up their saucy heads, defying possible late snows and frosts.
The roads were still muddy but not quite so bad as in the winter, and now, more than ever, Douglas with her faithful protector, Bobby, could enjoy the walks to and from school. The stilts did not have to be used nearly so often, although Nan and Lucy had become such adepts on their flamingo legs that they often mounted them merely for the pleasure and not because of the mud.
Valhalla was growing lovelier day by day. The gaunt trees had taken on a veil of green. The nations were at war. The United States was being forced into the game in spite of her attempts at neutrality; but Mother Nature’s slogan was: “Business as usual!” and she was attending to it exactly as she had from the beginning and as she will until the end of time.
Spring had come in good earnest, and with her the myriads of little creatures who must work so hard for a mere existence. Strange scratchings had begun in the chimneys at Valhalla. The swallows were back and gave the Carters to understand that they had been tenants in that old overseer’s house long before those city folks ever thought of such a thing as spending the winter in such a place. The robins were hopping about the lawn, trying to decide where they would build, while the mocking-birds were already busy in the honeysuckle hedge.
One Saturday, the Saturday before war was actually declared, the Count de Lestis came to call, bringing with him in a lovely wicker cage a carrier pigeon for Douglas.
“You promised that sometimes you would send me a message, remember,” he said with the sentimental glance that Douglas refused to respond to.
“Certainly I will. I’ll send a note asking you to come to dinner. Would that do?”
“Anything you send will do,” he sighed.
The pigeon was a beautiful little creature with glossy plumage and dainty red legs.