"What is it? What can it be? I never smelt anything like it!" cried the girls from the city.
"Now, girls," cried Hesse, turning her bright face around from the driver's seat, "this is real, absolute country, you know,—none of the make-believes which you get at Newport or up the Hudson. Everything we have is just as queer and old-fashioned as it can be. You won't be asked to a single party while you are here, and there isn't the ghost of a young man in the neighborhood. Well, yes, there may be a ghost, but there is no young man. You must just make up your minds, all of you, to a dull time, and then you'll find that it's lovely."
"It's sure to be lovely wherever you are, you dear thing!" declared Ella Waring, with a little rapturous squeeze.
I fancy that, just at first, the city girls did think the place very queer. None of them had ever seen just such an old house as the Reinikes' before. The white wainscots with their toothed mouldings matched by the cornices above, the droll little cupboards in the walls, the fire-boards pasted with gay pictures, the queer closets and clothes-presses occurring just where no one would naturally have looked for them, and having, each and all, an odd shut-up odor, as of by-gone days,—all seemed very strange to them. But the flowers and the green elms and Hesse's warm welcome were delightful; so were Aunt's waffles and wonderful tarts, the strawberries smothered in country cream, and the cove oysters and clams which came in, deliciously stewed, for tea; and they soon pronounced the visit "a lark," and Sparlings-Neck a paradise.
There were long drives in the woods, picnics in the pine groves, bathing-parties on the beach, morning sittings under the trees with an interesting book; and when a northeaster came, and brought with it what seemed a brief return of winter, there was a crackling fire, a candy-pull, and a charming evening spent in sitting on the floor telling ghost-stories, with the room only lighted by the fitfully blazing wood, and with cold creeps running down their backs! Altogether, the fortnight was a complete success, and every one saw its end with reluctance.
"I wish we were going to stay all summer!" said Georgie Berrian. "Newport will seem stiff and tiresome after this."
"I never had so good a time,—never!" declared Ella. "And, Hesse, I do think your aunt and uncle are the dearest old people I ever saw!" That pleased Hesse most of all. But what pleased her still more was when, after the guests were gone, and the house restored to its old order, and the regular home life begun again, Uncle put his arm around her, and gave her a kiss,—not a bedtime kiss, or one called for by any special occasion, but an extra kiss, all of his own accord.
"A dear child," he said; "not a bit ashamed of the old folks, was she? I liked that, Hesse."
"Ashamed of you and Aunt? I should think not!" answered Hesse, with a flush.
Uncle gave a dry little chuckle.