"You will see! The place is Renault. It all bears the print of his hand. He says himself that given a man with a real idea, a persistent idea, and he will make the desert blossom like a garden or move mountains,—in some way he will make that idea part of the organism of life! … There! I am quoting the doctor again, the third time. It's a habit one gets into up here!"
At the tinkle of a bell below, Margaret exclaimed:—
"It's six and supper, and you have had no real rest. You see the hours are primitive here,—breakfast at seven, dinner noon, and supper six. You will get used to it in a few days."
The dining room was a corner of the old kitchen that had been partitioned off. It was warm and bright, with an open fire, and the supper that Mrs. Short put on the table excellent. Mr. Short came in presently and took his seat at the head of the table. He was a large man, with a bony face softened by a thick grizzled beard. He said grace in a low voice, and then served the food. Isabelle noticed that his large hands were finely formed. His manner was kindly, in a subtle way that of the host at his own table; but he said little or nothing at first. The children made the conversation, piping up like little birds about the table and keeping the older people laughing. Isabelle had always felt that children at the table were a bore, either forward and a nuisance, or like little lynxes uncomfortably absorbing conversation, that was not suited to them. Perhaps that was because she knew few families where children were socially educated to take their place at the table, being relegated for the most part to the nurse or the governess.
Isabelle was much interested in Mr. Short. His wife, a thin, gray-haired woman, who wore spectacles and had a timid manner of speaking, was less of a person than the blacksmith. Sol Short, she found out later, had never been fifty miles from Grosvenor Flat in his life, but he had the poise, the self-contained air of a man who had acquired all needed worldly experience.
"Was it chilly coming up the Pass?" he asked Isabelle. "I thought 'twould be when it came on to blow some from the mountains. And Pete Jackson's horses are slow."
"They seemed frozen!"
The large man laughed.
"Well, you would take your time if you made that journey twice a day most every day in the year. You can't expect them to get exactly excited over it, can you?"
"Mr. Short," Margaret remarked, "I saw a light this evening in the house on
Wing Hill. What can it be?"