A faint sultry odor began to rise from the pine-tops, and from clumps of sweet-fern that stood in sunny spots; but the rank, long-stemmed flowers and trailing vines that grew under the trees were yet glistening with the undried shower; the shaded grass at the roadside was beaded, every blade, with minute sparkles of water; and here and there a pine-bough was thickly hung with drops that trembled with fulness at the points of its clustered emerald needles, and at a touch came clashing down in a shower that was distinctly heard through the silence.
The birds were taking their forenoon rest; but, as the carriage rolled lightly past, a fanatical bobolink, who did not seem to have much common sense, but to be brimming over with the most glorious nonsense, swung himself down from some hidden perch, alighted in an utterly impossible manner on a spire of grass, and poured forth such a long-drawn, liquid, impetuous song, that it was a wonder there was anything of him left when it was over.
Three pairs of hands were stretched to arrest the driver's arm; three smiling, breathless faces listened till the last note, and watched the ecstatic little warbler swim away with an undulating motion, as if he floated on the bubbling waves of his own song.
In a few minutes a turn of the road brought them in sight of the blue, salt water spread out boundlessly, sparkling, and sail-flecked; and presently they drove up at the cottage door.
This was a long, low building, all wings, like a moth; colored, like fungi, of mottled browns and yellows; overtrailed by woodbines and honeysuckles, through which you sometimes only guessed at the windows by the white curtains blowing out.
"Why, it is something that has grown out of the earth!" exclaimed Margaret. "See! the ground is all uneven about the walls as it is about the boles of trees."
This rural domicil faced the east and the sea; and an unfenced lawn sloped down to the beach where the tide was now creeping up with bright ripples chasing each other.
The house was pleasant enough, large and airy; and, after a few hours' work, they had everything in order. Then, tired, happy, and hungry, they sat down to luncheon.
"Isn't it delightful to get rid of men a little while, when you know that they are soon to come again?" drawled Aurelia, sitting with both elbows on the table, and her rich hair a little tumbled.