Elmfield was a rare place. Not by the work of art or the craft of the gardener at all; for a cunning workman had never touched its turf or its plantations. Indeed it had no plantations, other than such as were intended for pure use and profit; great fields of Indian corn, and acres of wheat and rye, and a plot of garden cabbages. Mrs. Reverdy's power of reform had reached only the household affairs. But the corn and the rye and the cabbages were out of sight from the immediate home field; and there the grace of nature had been so great that one almost forgot to wish that anything had been added to it. A little river swept, curving in sweet leisure, through a large level tract of greenest meadows. In front of one of these large curves the house stood, but well back, so that the meadow served instead of a lawn. It had no foreign beauties of tree growth to adorn it, nor needed them; for along the bank of the river, from space to space, irregularly, rose a huge New England elm, giving the shelter of its canopy of branches to a wide spot of turf. The house added nothing to the scene, beyond the human interest; it was just a large old farmhouse, nothing more; draped, however, and half covered up by other elms and a few fir trees. But in front of it lay this wide, sunny, level meadow, with the wilful little stream meandering through, with the stately old trees spotting it and breaking its monotony; and in the distance a soft outline of hills, not too far away, and varied enough to be picturesque, rounded in the whole picture. A picture one would stand long to look at; thoroughly New England and characteristic; gentle, homelike, lovely, with just a touch of wildness, intimating that you were beyond the rules of conventionality. Being New England folk themselves, Mrs. Starling and Diana of course would not read some of these features. They only thought it was a "fine place."
Long before they got there this afternoon, before anybody got there, the ladies of the family gathered upon the wide old piazza.
"It's as a good as a play," said Gertrude Masters. "I never saw such society in my life, and I am curious to know what they will be like."
"You have seen them in church," said Euphemia.
"Yes, but they all feel poky there. I can't tell anything by that.
Besides, I don't hear them talk. There's somebody now!"
"Too fast for any of our good sewing friends," said Mrs. Reverdy; "and there is no waggon. It's Mr. Masters, Gerty! How he does ride; and yet he sits as if he was upon a rocking-horse."
"I don't think he'd sit very quiet upon a rocking-horse," said Gerty. And then she lifted up her voice and shouted musically a salutation to the approaching rider.
He alighted presently at the foot of the steps, and throwing the bridle over his horse's head, joined the party.
"So delighted!" said Mrs. Reverdy graciously. "You are come just in time to help us take care of the people."
"Are you going to entertain the nation?" asked Mr Masters.