"Thanks, very much! It is a temptation. Miss Force. In what direction do you propose to walk?"
"Down the hill to the sh.o.r.e--then along the sh.o.r.e for three miles to Greenbushes," replied the young lady.
"And then through the house, which is to be Le"s and Odalite"s home after New Year, when they are married," volunteered Wynnette, a pretty, saucy little brunette of fourteen years.
"Wynnette! Wynnette! Hush!" exclaimed Odalite, blushing vividly.
"Why must I hush? Everybody knows Le is coming home to marry you at Christmas!" retorted the second sister.
"And what do you think, Col. Anglesea?" whispered Elva, a gentle, little blonde of twelve.
"What, my elf?" playfully inquired the colonel.
"Why, when Le and Odalite get married and go to live at Greenbushes, Wynnette and I will live there just as much as we shall at home here."
"Indeed! and what will Mr. Brother-in-law say to that?"
"Who, Le? Why, Le will say he is very glad. Le loves us all dearly. Le would give us anything we want, or do anything in the world for us.
Especially now I should think he would, when we are going to let him have our sister and take her away."
"Elva, my dear, you are talking too much," whispered Miss Meeke, a small, demure young woman, with a pale face, gray eyes and smooth brown hair.
"Why? When he wants to pretend that our Le will not be glad to have us all three to live with him? I must take Le"s part, you know, Miss Meeke, especially in his absence," pleaded Elva.
"Shall we walk on, Col. Anglesea?" suggested Odalite, to put an end to an embarra.s.sing conversation.
"Certainly, if you please. What are these sticks for?" inquired the colonel, referring to the wands the girls dragged behind them.
"Oh! these are to thresh the chincapin bushes, when we get there! And we expect to fill our baskets!" answered Wynnette.
"Can I not carry them for you?" he inquired; and without waiting for an answer, collected the sticks from the children, who not unwillingly gave them up.
"And now I think of it," suggested the colonel, "you will require but one stick, and that I will use and thresh the bushes while you gather the nuts. See, I will leave these three here, and take this thickest one. Now give me the four baskets; I will hang them on my stick and sling them over my shoulder, thus," he said, suiting the action to the word.
The two children laughed at the figure he cut.
"Now! Right face! Forward! March!" he cried, stepping out in front.
They left the lawn by the east gate and pa.s.sed through an orchard where a few late winter apples still clung to the nearly leafless branches of the trees; opened another gate and entered a narrow path leading down through the thick woods to the sh.o.r.e.
Then they turned southward and walked by the side of the bay, the children chattering as they went.
"What do you think, Col. Anglesea?" inquired Elva.
"I don"t know. What ought I to think?" laughingly inquired their escort.
"Well, I"ll tell you. Although Greenbushes is only three miles off, we have never seen it in our lives."
"Really, now?"
"No, never! Miss Notley, Le"s great-aunt, who owned the place and who left it to Le in her will, never lived here at all. She left the place in the care of old Mr. Beever, her overseer, and he and the negroes worked the land and raised the crops, and Mr. Copp, her lawyer, attended to the sale and shipping of the tobacco and--and all that, you know."
"I see."
"And Miss Notley lived on her other place down in Florida. At least, she lived there all the year round except the summer months, when she always went to Europe. She died in Florida, and left Felicia--her estate there--to her Florida relations."
"Ah!" said the colonel, trying to seem interested, while really brooding over his own schemes.
"And she left Greenbushes to Le, who is the only relative by her mother"s side."
"Quite so."
"And it is a great thing for Le and Odalite, for now they can marry and settle at once."
"Precisely."
"And as Wynnette and I shall spend half our time at Greenbushes, we mean to pick out our room and choose the paper and furniture for it."
"In--deed!"
"Oh, yes! Mr. Copp sent to New York and got ill.u.s.trated catalogues from the furniture dealers and books of patterns from the paper hangers, and samples from the--the--the--oh! what do you call them, Wynnette?--the people who color the walls that are not papered, you know?"
"The kalsominers?"
"Yes, that is what I mean! And all sorts of things! And we are going to choose our room and have it fixed!"
"Without consulting Mr. Brother-in-law?"
"Of course! Why, it is all to be done at once--at once! It is to be completed and quite ready by the time Le gets home! Won"t that be jolly?
Le wrote to Odalite to do just as she pleased with the house, and wrote to Mr. Copp to advance all the money that was necessary and give her all the advice and a.s.sistance that he could. So father wrote to Mr. Copp to meet us here to-day, and he is to do it. Father would have been here, too, but he was subpoenaed this very morning to attend court. Oh! do look at that flock of wild geese, colonel! I"m glad you haven"t got your gun and dogs this time!"
So chattering and letting their tongues run before their wit, the children, with their companions, reached Greenbushes, and turning from the sh.o.r.e, began to ascend the hill going toward the house, which stood on the summit a few hundred yards back from the bay, and in the midst of a grove of pines, cedars, yews, firs and every description of evergreens that would grow on the soil; so that winter, as well as summer, the mansion was sheltered, and the lawn was heavily shaded by a canopy of green trees; hence its name of Greenbushes, given when these same trees were but saplings.
The house, in the midst of this evergreen grove, was a building of hard, dark red bricks, and so irregular in construction as to defy all description; it had so many gable ends, tall chimneys, little dormer windows and latticed windows, as to confuse the spectator; and so many great doors, each with its own portico, as to make a strange visitor utterly uncertain concerning the whereabouts of the main entrance.
Two old men, standing on a three-cornered portico in an angle of the wall, drew the steps of the visitors thither, where they were met by Mr. Copp, a tall, thin, fair-faced, gray-haired lawyer, and Mr. Beever, a short, round, red-faced and bald-headed farmer.
Both were plainly dressed in business suits of heavy, black cloth.
"Do you know those persons?" inquired the colonel of Odalite.
"No, but I know who they are, and I have come to see them."
"Then let me speak to them first," he suggested, going up to the two men.
He addressed them in a low tone, and then brought them to the spot where Odalite and her companions waited.
"Miss Force," he said, "this is Mr. Copp, legal steward of the late Miss Laura Notley. This is Mr. Beever, manager of the plantation. They wish to speak to you on business, and will show you into the house," he said.