With the next morning came another shift of scene; they were in the fertile valleys of California. At every turn the landscape became more softly tinted, more gracious. Aunt Rebecca was in the best of humor and announced herself as having the journey of her life. The golden green of the grain fields, the towering palms, the pepper-trees with their fascinating grace, the round tops of the live-oaks, the gloss of the orange groves, the calla-lily hedges and the heliotrope and geranium trees which climbed to the second story of the stucco houses, filled her with the enthusiasm of a child. She drank in the cries of the enterprising young liar who cried “Fresh figs,” months out of season, and she ate fruit, withered in cold storage, with a trustful zest. No less than three books about the flora of California came out of her bag. A certain vine called the Bougainvillea, she was trying to find, if only the cars would not go so fast; as for poinsettias, she certainly should raise her own for Christmas. She was learned in gardens and she discoursed with Miss Smith on the different kinds of trumpet-vine, and whether the white jasmine trailing among the gaudy clusters was of the same family as that jasmine which they knew in the pine forests. But she disparaged the roses; they looked shop-worn. The colonel watched her in amazement.
“Bertie, I make you think of that little dwarf of Dickens’, don’t I?” she cried. “Miss Muffins, Muggins? what was her name? You are expecting me to exclaim, ‘Ain’t I volatile?’ Thank Heaven, I am. I could always take an interest in trifles. It has been my salvation to cultivate an interest in trifles, Bertie; there are a great many more trifles than crises in life. Where has Janet gone? Oh, to give the porter the collodion for his cut thumb. People with troubles, big or little, are always making straight for Janet. Bertie, have you made your mind up about her?”
“Only that she is charming,” replied the colonel. He did not change color, but he was uneasily conscious that he winced, and that the shrewd old critic of life and manners perceived it. But she was mercifully blind to all appearance; she went on with the little frown of the solver of a psychological enigma. “Yes, Janet is charming; and why? She is the stillest creature. Have you noticed? Yet you never have the sense that she hasn’t answered you. She’s the best listener in the world; and there’s one thing about her unusual in most listeners—her eyes never grow vacant.”
Rupert had noticed; he called himself a doddering old donkey silently, because he had assumed that there was anything personal in the interest of those eyes when he had spoken. Of course not; it was her way with every one, even Millicent, no doubt. His aunt’s next words were lost, but a sentence caught his ear directly: “For all she’s so gentle, she has plenty of spirit. Bertie, did I ever tell you about the time our precious cousin threw our great-great-grandfather’s gold snuff-box at her? No? It was funny. She flew into one of her towering rages, and shrieking, ‘Take that!’ hurled the snuff-box at Janet. Janet wasn’t used to having things thrown at her. She caught the box, then she rang the bell. ‘Thank you very much,’ says Janet; and when old Aunt Phrosie came, she handed the snuff-box to her, saying it had just been given to her as a present. But she sent it that same day to one of the sisters. There was never anything else thrown at her, I can tell you.”
They found a wonderful sunset on the bay when San Francisco was reached. Still in her golden humor, as they rattled over the cobblestones of the picturesque streets to the Palace Hotel, Mrs. Winter told anecdotes of Robert Louis Stevenson, obtained from a friend who had known his mother. Mrs. Winter had chosen the Palace in preference to the St. Francis, to Mrs. Melville’s high disgust.
“She thinks it more typical,” sneered Millicent; “myself, I prefer cleanliness and comfort to types.”
Their rooms were waiting for them and two bell-boys ushered Mrs. Winter into her suite. Randall was lodged on the same floor, and Mrs. Melville, who was to spend a few days with her aunt on the latter’s invitation, was on a lower floor. The colonel had begged to have Archie next to him; and he examined the quarters with approbation. His own room was the last of the suite; to the right hand, between his room and Archie’s, was their bath; then the parlor of Mrs. Winter’s suite next her room and bath, and last, to the right, Miss Smith’s room.
Archie was sitting by the window looking out on the street; only the oval of his soft boyish cheek showed. The colonel went by him to the parlor beyond, where he encountered his aunt, her hands full of gay postal cards.
“Souvenirs de voyage,” she answered his glance; “I am going to post them.”
“Can’t I take them for you?”