The house was not
forbidding, Felicia decided--only tired, and very shabby. The burdocks
at the door-step could be easily disposed of. It was a wide stone
door-step, as she had hoped and from it, though there was not much view
of the bay, there were nice things to be seen. Before it, the orchard
dropped away at one side, leaving a wide vista of brown meadows, sown
with more of the pointy trees and grayed here and there by rocks; beyond
that, a silver slip of water, and the far shore blue, blue in the
distance. To the right of the house the land rolled away over another
dun meadow that stopped at a rather civilized-looking hedge, above which
rose a dense tumble of high trees. To the left lay the over-grown
dooryard, the old lichened stone wall, and the sagging gate which opened
to Winterbottom Road. Felicia tried to describe it all to Kirk, and
wondered as she gazed at him, standing beside her with the eager,
listening look his face so often wore, how much of it could mean
anything to him but an incomprehensible string of words.
Ken returned from Asquam in Hop's chariot, surrounded by bundles.
"Luxury!" he proclaimed, when the spoils were unloaded. "An oil-stove,
two burners--and food, and beautiful plates with posies on 'em--and tin
spoons! And I met Mrs. Hopkins and she almost fainted when I told her
we'd slept on the floor. She wanted us to come to her house, but it's
the size of a butter-box, and stuffy; so she insisted on sending three
quilts.
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