“It’s very pretty, miss,” returned Higgins, guardedly, “but hit hain’t to be compared with Hengland. You should see Lord Carresford’s hestate. Hif you could see that, Miss Gretel, you might well call hit beautiful.”
But Gretel did not look convinced.
“I don’t see how any place can be more beautiful than this,” she maintained. “See that big house on the hill? It looks just like a castle, doesn’t it? I wonder who lives there?”
“Most likely some of the millionaires,” responded Higgins, who would have died sooner than admit that anything American could equal her beloved England. “Hit’s a pretty place, but hit don’t compare with what I’ve seen hin the old country.”
At that moment the lady in the front seat turned her head with the announcement—
“We are almost home, Gretel; that is our place on the hill.”
Gretel gave a great gasp of astonishment; speech failed her at that moment. Even the solid Higgins opened her eyes in surprise, as the car turned in at a pair of iron gates, and in two minutes more had dashed up a wide avenue lined with beautiful old trees, and drawn up before a large stone house with pillars. It was the very house Gretel had described as “looking like a castle.”
“Well, how do you like it, Gretel?” her brother asked, smiling, as he sprang out of the car, and came to help Higgins unpack their belongings.
“It’s the most beautiful place I ever saw,” declared Gretel, finding her voice at last. “Is this really where you and Barbara live, and am I going to live here, too?”
“We are going to spend the summer here, at any rate,” Mr. Douane answered. “I have rented the place for six months.”