"Have you ever been up to the corral, Miss Estill?" Clifford asked.

"Not for three years, Mr. Warlow. Now, while we are speaking of supernatural things, I must tell you how strangely I always felt at that place. I can never go about the old ruin without being a.s.sailed by an uncanny feeling--something like one might be expected to feel who walks over her own grave, you know!" she added with a smile; then continuing she said earnestly: "It always seems that something terrible haunts the very air there, and I feel a weight of grief and misery that horrifies me whenever I pa.s.s the spot. If I had lost my dearest friend there, I should have very much the same sensation, I believe, at sight of the ruin. I struggle with my memory to recall some event with which I seem to have been connected there; but it is all in vain, for it is as intangible as a moonbeam."

"That is very mysterious indeed, Miss Estill; for I often feel very much that way myself there, but not in so marked a degree as when I pa.s.s that great hill three miles up the valley, known as Antelope b.u.t.te. I am often overpowered by a feeling of deepest melancholy and grief while only pa.s.sing that hill. The first time I saw the place I was shocked to think how familiar it all seemed; for I found the spring near its base just where my instinct seemed to tell me that the water bubbled forth from the rocky cleft. But a feeling of unutterable longing and an uncontrollable yearning to see some one, the name even of whom I can not recall, always seizes me there, and I am both perplexed and horrified at the sensation," Clifford replied.

Gradually the tone of their conversation lost its gloomy hue, and rambled away into the realms of art, history, and song, of the fair foreign lands beyond that blue, quivering horizon; and as Miss Estill fluttered her fan of carved ivory and rose-plumes, talking in her sweet vivacious way, the sunlight threw a halo about the golden hair and Grecian face of the youth reclining on the bank, suffusing with rose the handsome features that even a western sun in all its fierceness could not rob of its fresh glow.

As the fastidious Miss Estill noted every detail of his faultless attire, neither old nor new, from the tips of his shapely fingers to his glossy boots bearing the undeniable stamp of gentleman, she thought how utterly effete was the comparison, "Rough as a farmer;" and as admiration shone in his boyish face, illuminated with those honest blue eyes, fringed by their lashes of dead gold, is it any wonder that romance threw its glamour over the scene, and they half forgot to roam in fancy through foreign lands, thinking of the joyful present, which, alas! we seldom value until it has become a sweet memory only.

The long shadows which stole down from the hill-tops warned our young friends that they would soon part, and reluctantly they returned to the platform, where preparations for starting were being made. Grace Moreland and Hugh Estill still appeared to be deeply engrossed with each other's society, and it was not remarkable that young Estill should hover about the vivacious and bewitching Grace; for she was a sparkling, graceful creature, the picture of innocence and youth, in her dress of fleecy white.

As Clifford stood by Miss Estill at parting, he said, while his hand rested on the mane of her creamy horse:--

"Ah, Miss Estill, I little thought what this morning held in store. This has been a day that repays the many dark years of the past, and I shall treasure its memory forever."

"Yes; a blissful day indeed, Mr. Warlow; and it almost makes me sad to think I shall ever grow old," she replied, as she gave her hand, which he held longer--yes, I shall have to confess the fact, much longer--than the laws of conventionality demanded.

As the Warlow carriage drove up the broad valley, the coolness of twilight was brooding over the prairies, and the twittering songsters fluttered down from the highlands to the sheltering thickets which belted the stream, and the fire-flies gemmed the dusky groves and meadows when they alighted at their homes.

Chapter XI.

On a clear, serene Sabbath following the picnic, Miss Estill and Hugh rode up to Squire Moreland's, excusing the call on that holy day by saying that they were too busy to spare one day of six; and after dinner at that hospitable home, they walked up to Colonel Warlow's, being accompanied by Grace, Ralph, and Scott.

They paused at the great latticed and arched gate to glance into the yard, which was inclosed by a low stone wall, over which the grapes and wild-roses clambered in heavy cl.u.s.ters of tangled foliage. Two gaudy peac.o.c.ks were sunning their glittering plumage on the gra.s.s plat in front of the long stone dwelling resting so cool under the great elm--that same historical tree which had served as place of refuge during the "flood"--drooping low over the quaint gables, dormer windows, and chimneys wreathed by the transplanted wild vines which festooned the rough walls.

The colonel was asleep in a hammock, which was slung in the latticed porch, and his placid wife sat near, reading the Bible, as she rocked softly in the easy-chair. Clifford, clad in a cool white suit, was reading also; but I fear the work, in which he was so absorbed that he had not seen the approaching guests, was not of such a sacred nature as befitted the Lord's-day. Maud and Bob, swinging in a swing which was fastened to the limbs of the great elm, were likewise perusing the pages of some entertaining book, which Maud dropped with a little feminine squeak of delight as she saw her friends; then she flew down the path, and greeted the new-comers with unfeigned pleasure.

As she kissed Miss Estill and Grace in true girlish fashion, Rob, the handsome rogue, came forward and gravely offered to salute the ladies in the same manner; but his cordial advances were declined with thanks, whereupon he turned to the young men of the party and kissed them effusively, amid their merry peals of laughter at his sly way of ridiculing the feminine mode of greeting.

Mrs. Marlow said in her low, sweet voice, as she led the guests into the house, after they had been presented in due form by Clifford,--

"It is very kind of you, hunting us up this lonesome afternoon."

"We should have done so long before this if we had known what very agreeable neighbors lived so near," replied young Estill.

"You will smile, possibly, at our thinking twelve miles a neighborly distance, Mrs. Warlow, but I a.s.sure you it seems only a trifle when we remember that for years we have considered the people of Abilene and Lawrence our neighbors," said Miss Estill as she sank into an easy-chair, after Maud had relieved her of the jaunty black hat with its drooping white plume.

"We will freely forgive you, Miss Estill, if you will atone for your past neglect," said Mrs. Warlow, with a pleased smile. "The lack of society has been the greatest privation attending our Western life, and but for the unvarying kindness and sympathy of Squire Moreland's family, I fear we should have found it quite monotonous."

The room where they were seated was a wide, many-windowed apartment, with cool lace curtains sweeping the dark, rich carpet. The walls were graced by a few pictures and portraits, and on the brackets of walnut and mahogany were vases of wild-flowers. A wide bay-window at one end was half screened by the curtains of lace, and through their filmy meshes could be seen the cherished geraniums and fuchsias that were so dear to Maud as a memento of the old Missouri home. A great beveled mirror, framed in heavy gilt moulding, reached from the mantel to the ceiling; and strangest sight in this Western land was a wide fire-place; but instead of the glowing coals and crackling flames which one always a.s.sociates with the hearth-stone, there were banks of blooming plants.

The rich old piano and Maud's guitar occupied one corner, and a low, velvet divan the other, on each side of the mantel. It was a room which, Miss Estill and her brother perceived, was redolent with the refinement and harmony of the family, as simply elegant and devoid of sham and pretense as its owners.

Miss Estill gave a sigh of gratification as her glance swept the apartment, and rested out on the shady, well-kept lawn, where the hum of bees and songs of wild-birds seemed so wholly in keeping with the tone of happiness and industry which pervaded the Warlow household.

"How strange it seems that you have been here so short a time! It is almost like enchantment--this evolving such a perfect home from the wild, lonesome prairies and tangled woodland, where the wolf and buffalo roamed unmolested not two short years ago."

"We have to thank nature for the trees and flowers, the vines also, Miss Estill; but you see we had little else to occupy our time but the improvements of our new home; though I believe we can truly say that we have not been idle the past year," replied Clifford.

"It is wonderful what a change your taste and energy have made in that brief time. We can not blame our Eastern friends, who never have beheld a wide, desolate prairie transformed into such a charming home-land as this in a short year, if they do vilify the average Kansan, and tax him with boastfulness and other vices not akin to truth."

At request of her guests, Maud was soon seated at the rich, mellow-toned piano, and the strains of "The Bridge" floated out through the open windows, as her sweet contralto rose, freighted with the heart-throbs and regret which thrill through the melody of that pathetic song.

"Ah! Tennyson never had heard this sad, weird poem when he gave the t.i.tle 'Lord of Human Tears' to Victor Hugo, or our own Longfellow would have won it," said Miss Estill with a sigh.

"Yes; Longfellow is the poet that seems nearest in all our moments of retrospection. I never stand at the crossing of the old Santa Fe and Abilene Trails, on that hill yonder, without his lines recurring,--

'Like an odor of brine from the ocean, Comes the thought of other years;'--

and I must tell you, Miss Estill, that whenever I meet you I feel that same remembrance, vague and evanescent, of a time when you and I were very happy, and were all--at least we were very great friends. But it is so shadowy and indistinct that I can not grasp its meaning. It is like the memory of some half-forgotten dream or the dim recollections of a former life," replied young Warlow, in a low tone, as the pulsing waves of music, the "Blue Danube," throbbed through the vines and lace curtains of the bay-window where they sat.

"If you were less thrifty, Mr. Warlow, I would suspect you were too fond of poetry to be practical. But I should not throw sarcastic stones at your gla.s.s house, for it has been no longer than a month ago that mamma scolded me roundly for forgetting the yeast in my batch of light bread.

I had to lay all the blame at the 'open door' of the 'Moated Grange,'

which I had been reading. Poor Mariana might well have said, after looking on my leaden loaves:--

'I am aweary, aweary,-- I would that I were dead!'"

While Clifford was making some laughing reply to this bucket of poetical cold water, he and Miss Estill were summoned to the piano, where our young friends were floundering hopelessly through the intricacies of a glee, in which Grace's alto would persist in getting all tangled up with Hugh's baritone, and the cat-calls of Rob's b.a.s.t.a.r.d ba.s.s and Scott's frantic tenor only served to heighten the confusion, that finally collapsed in subdued shrieks of laughter. But when Miss Estill's dainty fingers rippled over the guitar, and their voices blended with varying degrees of melody as its tw.a.n.ging notes mingled with the mellow tones of the piano, then something like harmony prevailed again. Yet she and Clifford would still exchange amused glances whenever Rob gave vent to a more p.r.o.nounced caterwaul than usual, or Scott's gosling tenor squawked a wild note of alarm.

"Miss Estill, I am longing to hear you render a Spanish solo; for I never can help the picture of a Castilian maiden playing amid the courts of the Alhambra, rising whenever you take the guitar," said young Warlow, in a low tone.

"My broken Spanish would soon dispel the illusion," she replied, with a soft blush; "but I will give you, instead, a poor translation of a Mexican song;" and in a voice rich with melody and feeling, she sang:--

"There blooms no rose upon the plain, But costs the night a thousand tears,"--

while the guitar rained a shower of soft-dripping music, veined with a thrill of sadness. As her bosom rose and fell with the sweet strains, the ruby heart which clasped the ruff at her slender throat flashed rays of crimson and rose in the stray sunbeams that glinted through the room.

Clifford remained rapt in a reverie as the dreamy music, with a low minor ripple, died away, and the listeners sat in silence a moment, paying a mute tribute to the graceful singer who now was idly toying with the guitar.

One white arm was half revealed by the wide-flowing sleeve, with its fall of creamy lace; a cl.u.s.ter of fuchsias drooped among the waves of her hair, and the wide ruff gave a graceful finish to the close-fitting riding-habit of black velvet which she wore.

Young Warlow was aroused by his mother saying:--

"Miss Estill, the colonel, my husband."

He turned quickly, and saw his father standing in the doorway, staring as if he had seen a sheeted ghost. Yes; it was undeniable that the courtly and urbane colonel was positively staring with a white face at the beautiful guest, and as he came forward he said, in an agitated voice:--

"Ivarene? No--no--impossible! Pardon, Miss Estill; but your face reminds me so strongly of a dear, kind friend, 'who pa.s.sed over the dark river long years ago,' that I was quite unnerved;" and as he held her slender hand he looked hungrily into the blue eyes that were regarding him with a look of shy wonder. When Hugh was presented, the colonel glanced keenly from the blonde, hazel-eyed young man back to the creole face of the young lady, and he again murmured brokenly, and in an incredulous tone, "Brother and sister? Strange--mystery!" and in the hearts of that group for many a day echoed and re-echoed his words: "Mystery, mystery!"

A constraint seemed to fall immediately upon the inmates of the room, and Maud, perceiving the traces of social frost in the atmosphere, suggested that they should take a look at her flowers; and the guests rose and followed in a confused group out into the flower-garden, that was surrounded with a low stone wall.

The paths, which divided the small plat into four subdivisions, were interrupted at their intersection by a circular path, where a succession of terraces of the same figure rose to the height of half a dozen feet, the whole forming a circular mound, crowned by a tiny latticed arbor, which was reached by a flight of white stone steps, flanked by vases of the same alabaster-like material.

The terraces were sodded with the dainty, short buffalo-gra.s.s, and each offset was planted with a profusion of flowers, now beginning to unfold their blossoms. This unique ornament was the work of Clifford and Robbie, who had in their "idle" moments thus transformed the unsightly pile of earth, which had resulted from excavating the cellar, into a "hanging garden to please Maud," and she felt justly proud of the compliments which the guests bestowed on the attractive feature of her trim garden, with its wealth of lilies, roses, and gladioluses.