"Missie like?" he asked this morning, indicating the wreath of wild cranberry vine round the dish of chicken. Then he set a mound of white raspberries in the middle of the table, starred with gold-hearted brown coreopsis, and asked again, "Missie like dat?" pleased at Clover's answering nod and smile. Noiselessly he came and went in his white-shod feet, fetching in one dish after another, and when all was done, making a sort of dual salaam to the two ladies, and remarking "Allee yeady now," after which he departed, his pigtail swinging from side to side and his blue cotton garments flapping in the wind as he walked across to the cook-house.
Delicious breaths of roses and mignonette floated in as the party gathered about the breakfast table. They came from the flower-beds just outside, which Clover sedulously tended, watered, and defended from the roving cattle, which showed a provoking preference for heliotropes over penstamens whenever they had a chance to get at them. Cows were a great trial, she considered; and yet after all they were the object of their lives in the Valley, their raison d'être, and must be put up with accordingly.
"Do you suppose the Youngs have landed yet?" asked Elsie as she qualified her husband's coffee with a dash of thick cream.
"They should have got in last night if the steamer made her usual time. I dare say we shall find a telegram at St. Helen's to-morrow if we go in," answered her brother-in-law.
"Yes, or possibly Phil will ride out and fetch it. He is always glad of an excuse to come. I wonder what sort of girl Miss Young is. You and Clover never have said much about her."
"There isn't much to say. She's just an ordinary sort of girl,—nice enough and all that, not pretty."
"Oh, Geoff, that's not quite fair. She's rather pretty, that is, she would be if she were not stiff and shy and so very badly dressed. I didn't get on very much with her at Clovelly, but I dare say we shall like her here; and when she limbers out and becomes used to our ways, she'll make a nice neighbor."
"Dear me, I hope so," remarked Elsie. "It's really quite important what sort of a girl Miss Young turns out to be. A stiff person whom you had to see every day would be horrid and spoil everything. The only thing we need, the only possible improvement to the High Valley, would be a few more nice people, just two or three, with pretty little houses, you know, dotted here and there in the side canyons, whom we could ride up to visit, and who would come down to see us, and dine and play whist and dance Virginia reels and 'Sally Waters' on Christmas Eve. That would be quite perfect. But I suppose it won't happen till nobody knows how long."
"I suppose so, too," said Geoff in a tone of well-simulated sympathy. "Poor Elsie, spoiling for people! Don't set your heart on them. High Valley isn't at all a likely spot to make a neighborhood of."
"A neighborhood! I should think not! A neighborhood would be horrid. But if two or three people wanted to come,—really nice ones, you know, perfect charmers,—surely you and Clare wouldn't have the heart to refuse to sell them building lots?"