“Oh, I should just love to see it!” enthused Nathalie; “Helen told me about it. She said she was going to suggest that the groups of the Pioneer band have a Pioneer room.”
“Isn’t it old-timey?” she mused a half hour later, as Grace ushered her into a low-ceiled room whose walls were flauntingly gay with a paper of many-colored tulips, which, Grace proudly admitted, was decidedly Dutch and for that reason had been selected.
Nathalie’s keen eyes were lured to the photographs, water-colors, etchings, and cuts from magazines, all representative of pioneer days, that peeped from between the gorgeous rows of tulips. An etching of New Amsterdam dated 1650, with rows of one story houses, with their gable ends notched like steps, and weather vanes surmounted with grotesque designs of horses, lions, and geese, proved a great contrast in its quaint simplicity to the New York of to-day.
Her eyes swept from this pictured history to the four-poster with its dimity valance, and then on to the oval dressing table, resplendent with silver candle-sticks, snuffers, and a curious little Dutch lamp with a funny mite of a tinder-box by its side.
“But that clock is a dear!” she murmured as her gaze lingered admiringly upon a tall grandfather’s clock in the corner, which returned her glance with such old-time solemnity on its ivory-tinted face that Nathalie’s brain became a movie screen, one scene after another presenting themselves to her vivid imagination.
“Father gave that clock to me last birthday,” informed Grace with pride; “it belonged to the Very Reverend Henricus Van Twiller, one of my forebears. See, there’s his picture over the mantel,” pointing to a seamed and dingy-looking canvass of said forebear, who looked down at them with stolid complacency.
“Yes, it is very old,” continued Grace, “some unimaginative relative of Papa was going to chop it up with Georgie’s little hatchet, but Father rescued it just in time. But you must look at the spinning-wheel. Grandmother gave it to me for being a thief.”
“Yes,” she rattled on, “I stole a satin bow from her old wedding gown for a souvenir, and when she discovered what I had done, the old dear not only forgave me, but added this spinning-wheel to my collection of things ancient. See, here is the bow on the distaff. But come, let’s go down and have the lemonade, I’m dying for a cooling drink.”
As the two girls sat sipping the beverage, Grace suddenly sprang up crying, “Oh, there’s Fred! I want you to meet him!” She began to wave and call frantically in the direction of the lawn, where a tall, well-formed youth was striding, nonchalantly swinging his tennis-racket.
“Oh, I say, kid, what do you want? I’m in a hurry!” came in response a moment later, as the youth stopped and eyed his sister impatiently, vigorously mopping his face, for the day was warm.