"Darling, it's too lovely!" exclaimed Cynthia, every few minutes, while Jacqueline was conducting her from one room to another, upstairs, down again, through the hall and corridor, accompanied by an adoring multitude of low-born dogs and nondescript cats, all running beside her with tails stuck upright.
And so, very happily together, they visited the kitchen, laundry, storeroom, drying room, engine room, cellars; made the fragrant tour of the greenhouses and a less fragrant visit to the garage; inspected the water supply; gingerly traversed the gravel paths of the kitchen garden, peeped into tool houses, carpenters' quarters; gravely surveyed compost heaps, manure pits, and cold frames.
Jacqueline pointed out the distant farm, with its barns, stables, dairy, and chicken runs, from the lantern of the windmill, whither they had climbed; and Cynthia looked out over the rolling country to the blue hills edging the Hudson, and down into gray woodlands where patches of fire signalled the swelling maple buds; and edging willows were palely green. Over brown earth and new grass robins were running; and bluebirds fluttered from tree to fencepost.
Cynthia's arm stole around Jacqueline's waist.
"I am so glad for you—so glad, so proud," she whispered. "Do you remember, once, long ago, I prophesied this for you? That you would one day take your proper place in the world?"
"Do you know," mused Jacqueline, "I don't really believe that the place matters so much—as long as one is all right. That sounds horribly priggish—but isn't it so, Cynthia?"
"Few ever attain that self-sufficient philosophy," said Cynthia, laughing. "You can spoil a gem by cheap setting."
"But it remains a gem. Oh, Cynthia! Am I such a prig as I sound?"
They were both laughing so gaily that the flock of pigeons on the roof were startled into flight and swung around them in whimpering circles.