"You angel! you little angel! you little dear!" he cried, with a positive dew of pleasure in his eyes. "Elsie, what have we ever done to deserve such a darling?"
"I really don't know what you have done," remarked Elsie, coolly; "but I have done a good deal. I always was meritorious in my way, and deserve the best that is going, even Phillida. She is none too good for me. Come back, baby, to your exemplary parent."
She rose to recapture the child; but Clarence threw a strong arm about her, still holding Phillida on his shoulder, and the three went waltzing merrily down the room, the little one from her perch accenting the dance time with a series of small shouts. Little Geoff looked up soberly, with his mouth full of raspberries, and remarked, "Aunty, I didn't ever know that people danced at breakfast."
"No more did I," said Elsie, trying in vain to get away from her pirouetting husband.
"No more does any one outside this extraordinary valley of ours," laughed Geoff. "Now, partner, if you have finished your fandango, allow me to remind you that there are a hundred and forty head of cattle waiting to be branded in the upper valley, and that Manuel is to meet us there at ten o'clock."
"And we have the breakfast things to wash, and a whole world to do at the Youngs'," declared Elsie, releasing herself with a final twirl. "Now, Clare dear, order Marigold and Summer-Savory, please, to be brought down in half an hour, and tell old José that we want him to help and scrub. No, young man, not another turn. These sports are unseemly on such a busy day as this. 'Dost thou not suspect my place? dost thou not suspect my years?' as the immortal W. would say. I am twenty-five,—nearly twenty-six,—and am not to be whisked about thus."
Everybody went everywhere on horseback in the High Valley, and the gingham riding-skirts and wide-brimmed hats hung always on the antlers, ready to hand, beside water-proofs and top-coats. Before long the sisters were on their way, their saddle-pockets full of little stores, baskets strapped behind them, and the newly made curtains piled on their laps. The distance was about a mile to the house which Lionel Young and his sister were to inhabit.
It stood in a charming situation on the slope of one of the side canyons, facing the high range and backed by a hillside clothed with pines. In build it was very much such a cabin as the original hut had been,—six rooms, all on one floor, the sixth being a kitchen. It was newly completed, and sawdust and fresh shavings were littered freely about the place. Clover's first act was to light a fire in the wide chimney for burning these up.
"It looks bare enough," she remarked, sweeping away industriously. "But it will be quite easy to make it pleasant if Imogen Young has any faculty at that sort of thing. I'm sure it's a great deal more promising than the Hut was before Clarence and Geoff and I took hold of it. See, Elsie,—this room is done. I think Miss Young will choose it for her bedroom, as it is rather the largest; so you might tack up the dotted curtains here while I sweep the other rooms. And that convolvulus chintz is to cover her dress-pegs."
"What fun a house is!" observed Elsie a moment or two later, between her hammer strokes. "People who can get a carpenter or upholsterer to help them at any minute really lose a great deal of pleasure. I always adored baby-houses when I was little, and this is the same thing grown up."