"Pshaw! we'll come and help brighten it up, won't we Frances?"
"'A house's best ornament is the presence of a friend,'" quoted Edward, a glint of mischief in his eyes as he went to say good-by.
The professor had not been so pleased in many a day. The young man, the son of his old friend, fulfilled all his traditions; well-born, well-bred, well-read, with the advantage of a pleasing personality, and, a woman would have added, a face none the less handsome for the look of grave determination upon it. Then, too, the professor, being a student of the classics, was interested in agriculture by way of contrast, and was filled with theories concerning the farming possibilities of his own state, and most particularly those of his own county. There was not an experiment which had been tried there in the last twenty years that he had not at his fingers' ends: the Englishman with his fancy breed of sheep or cows, the stock farmer with his registered horses, the man who had turned his fields into apple orchards, the man who had planted his hillsides with vineyards,--he could talk of all far more fluently than the workers.
There was a vineyard on the Northrup place famed as being of the best. The professor went across the quadrangle talking eagerly of it and of the merits of Concords and Catawbas and Isabellas; and he parted with an assurance of an early visit.
He went, and came back more enthusiastic than ever; went again and carried Susan for a stay at her log cabin a half mile down the valley from the main road.
Three or four times a year Susan went "home." She would make her way through the rotting gate and weed-worn pathway, open the battered door and window to flood the cabin with air and sunshine, fling feather-bed and pillows and quilts to the sweetening winds; would war with dust within and weeds without; and then, when all was in order again, would sit in the worn doorway, her hands folded, looking down the narrow valley threaded by the mountain stream and up to the purple tops closing in the horizon. Long thoughts went through her mind, too narrow to be forgetful, bitter-sweet memories of the childish feet that had pattered about the doorway, of her strife, and her happiness. When the team to take her back was in sight she would lock her door and go down the pathway to the road, her hand on the key in her pocket. The feeling of its possession gave her strength to lose her own life in the life of others.