She looked at it uncomprehendingly. "For
you--to keep," he said, flushing again, and looking hard into her
dark eyes, which in return lightened suddenly from their usual rather
somber seriousness into a smile, a real smile. Judith's smiles were
far from frequent, but the recipient of one did not forget it.
CHAPTER IV
EVERY ONE'S OPINION OF EVERY ONE ELSE
In this way, almost from the first, several distinct lines of cleavage
were established in the family party during the next fortnight. Arnold
imperiously demanded a complete vacation from "lessons," and when, it
was indolently granted, he spent it incessantly with Judith, the two
being always out of doors and usually joyously concocting what in any
but the easy-going, rustic plainness of the Marshall mode of life
would have been called mischief. Mrs. Marshall, aided by the others
in turn, toiled vigorously between the long rows of vegetables and
a little open shack near by, where, on a superannuated but still
serviceable cook-stove, she "put up," for winter use, an endless
supply of the golden abundance which, Ceres-like, she poured out every
year from the Horn of Plenty of her garden. Sylvia, in a state of
hypnotized enchantment, dogged her Aunt Victoria's graceful footsteps
and still more graceful, leisurely halts; Lawrence bustled about on
his own mysterious business in a solitary and apparently exciting
world of his own which was anywhere but in La Chance; and Professor
Marshall, in the intervals of committee work at the University, now
about to open, alternated between helping his wife, playing a great
deal of very noisy and very brilliant music on the piano, and
conversing in an unpleasant voice with his sister.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59