“I never had my way in anything before,” Mrs. Bishop was running on, in the pleased voice of a happy child, “and I'm glad you are goin' to let me this once. I want the new room to jut out on this side from the parlor, and have a bay-window, and we must cut a wide foldin'-door between the two rooms. Then the old veranda comes down and the new one must have a double floor, like Colonel Sprague's on the river, except ours will have round, white columns instead o' square, if they do cost a trifle more.”
“She knows what she wants,” said Bishop, with one of his infrequent smiles, “and I reckon we'd save a little to let her boss the job, ef she don't hender the carpenters by too much talk. I don't want 'em to put in a stick o' lumber that ain't the best.”
“I'm glad she's going to have her way,” said Alan. “She's wanted a better house for twenty years, and she deserves it.”
“I don't believe in sech fine feathers,” said Bishop, argumentatively. “I'd a leetle ruther wait till we see whether Wilson's a-goin' to put that road through—then we could afford to put on a dab or two o' style. I don't know but I'd move down to Atlanta an' live alongside o' Bill, an' wear a claw-hammer coat an' a dicky cravat fer a change.”
“Then you mought run fer the legislatur',” spoke up Abner Daniel, who had been an amused listener, “an' git up a law to pen up mad dogs at the dangerous part o' the yeer. Alf, I've always thought you'd be a' ornament to the giddy whirl down thar. William was ever' bit as green as you are when he fust struck the town. But he had the advantage o' growin' up an' sorter ripenin' with the place. It ud be hard on you at yore time o' life.”
At this juncture Alan called their attention to a horseman far down the road. “It looks like Ray Miller's mare,” he remarked. “This is one of his busy days; he can' t be coming to fish.”
“Railroad news,” suggested Abner. “It's a pity you hain't connected by telegraph.”
They were all now sure that it was Miller, and with no little curiosity they moved nearer the gate.
“By gum! he's been givin' his mare the lash,” said Abner. “She's fairly kivered with froth.”
“Hello, young man,” Alan called out, as Miller dismounted at a hitching-post just outside the fence and fastened his bridle-rein. “Glad to see you; come in.”