Part 21

"Whichever you please," Adam replied simply, the little boy's hand in his. "I only hope I shall be able to do justice to you both. It will be my fault if I don't with all this beauty about me. I am really dazed by these wonderful fruit-trees."

"Yes, we're going to have a good season," exclaimed the Judge--"best we have had for years, peaches especially. We expect a----"

"Oh, I only meant the coloring," interrupted Gregg, his cheeks flushing. "It's wonderfully lovely."

"And you don't have spring blossoms North?" asked Mrs. Colton. Her own eyes had been drinking in the charm of his personality; no color-schemes or palette-tones were interesting her. The straight, lithe, figure, square shoulders, open, honest face, sunny brown eyes, with the short, crisp hair that curled about the temples, meant something alive and young: something that could laugh when she laughed and be merry over little things.

"Yes, of course, but not this glorious rose-pink," the young painter burst out enthusiastically. "If it will only last until I finish your portrait! It's really your month to be painted in, Mrs. Colton. You have all of Sully's harmonies in your coloring--pink, white, blue"--he was still looking into her eyes--"The great Thomas should have seen you first, I am only his humble disciple," and he shrugged his square shoulders in a modest way.

"And what about Phil?" she laughed, catching the fire of his enthusiasm as she drew the boy closer to her side.

"Well, I should try him in October. He has"--and he glanced at the Judge--"his father's brown eyes and dark skin. Nuts and autumn leaves and red berries go best with that," he added, as he ran his fingers through the boy's short curls.

"And an old fellow like me, I suppose, you'd paint with a foot of snow on the ground," laughed the Judge dryly. "Well--anything to please Olivia. Come, all of you, dinner is waiting!"

* * * * *

The warmth of the greeting was as great a surprise to the young Northerner as the wealth of the out-of-door bloom. He had been hospitably received in similar journeys in his own State, but never quite like this. There it was a matter of business until he had become "better acquainted," even when he stayed in the houses of his patrons. He remembered one old farmer who wanted to put him in a room over the stable with the hired man, and another, a mill-owner, who deducted the sum of his board from the price of the picture, but here he had been treated as one of the family from the moment his foot touched their door-step. The Judge had not only placed him on his right hand at table, but had sent old Bundy, the family butler, down into the wine-cellar for a bottle of old Madeira, that had "rusted away in his cellar," he said, for thirty years, and which he would open in remembrance of his college days, when his guest's uncle was his chum and classmate.

Several days had passed before he would even allow Adam to take out his brushes and prepare his canvas for work; his explanation being that as he was obliged to go on Circuit, he would like to enjoy his visitor's society before he left. There would be plenty of time for the picture while he was away. Then it too would come as a full surprise on his return--not a half-completed picture showing the work of days, but a finished portrait alive not only with the charm of the sitter, but with the genius of the master. This was proclaimed with a courteous wave of his hand to his wife and Adam, as if she, too, would be held responsible for the success of the portrait.

The morning before his departure he called Olivia and Adam, and the three made a tour of the rooms in search of a suitable place where his easel could be set up and the work begun. All three admitted that the study was too dark, and so was the library unless the vines were cleared from the windows, which was, of course, out of the question, the Judge's choice finally resting on one corner of the drawing-room, where a large window let in a little more light. In acquiescence the young painter drew back the curtains and placed his subject first on the sofa and then in an arm-chair, and again standing by the sash, and once more leaning over the window-sill; but in no position could he get what he wanted.

"Suit yourselves, then," said the Judge, "and pick out your own place, and make yourselves as comfortable as you can--only don't hurry over it. I shall not be back for a month, and if that is not time enough, why, we have all summer before us. As to your other comforts, my dear Adam--and I rejoice to see you know a good bottle of wine when you taste it--I have given Bundy express orders to decant for you some of the old Tiernan of '28, which is a little dryer than even that special bottle of the Madeira you liked so well. My only regret is that I cannot share it with you. And now one word more before I say good-by, and that is that I must ask you, my dear Gregg, to do all you can to keep Mrs. Colton from becoming lonely. You will, of course, as usual, accompany her in her afternoon rides, and I need not tell you that my own horses are at your disposal. When I return I hope to be welcomed by two Olivias; one which by your genius you will put on canvas, and the other"--and he bowed grandiloquently to his wife--"I leave in your charge."

The young painter took the first opportunity to discharge his duty--an opportunity afforded him when the Judge, after kissing his wife and shaking hands with Adam the morning he left, had stepped into his gig, his servant beside him, and with a lifting of his hat in punctilious courtesy, had driven down between the lilacs. It may have been gallantry or it may have been the pathetic way in which she waved her handkerchief in return that roused the boyish sympathy in his heart:

"Don't worry," he said in a voice full of tenderness. "He won't be long gone--only a month, he says; and don't be unhappy--I'm going to do everything to cheer you up."

"But I'm never lonely," she answered with an air of bravado, "and I try never to be unhappy. I always have Phil. And now," and she broke out into a laugh, "I have you, and that makes me feel just as I did as a girl when one of the boys came over to play with me. Come upstairs, right away, and let me show you the big garret. I'm just crazy to see you begin work, and I really believe that's the best place, after all. It's full of old trunks and furniture, but there's a splendid window----"

"On which side of the house, north or south? I must have a north light, you know."

"Yes--north; looking straight up into your freezing cold country, sir! This way! Come along!" she cried joyously as she mounted the stairs, little Phil, as usual, tumbling after them.

Adam entered first and stood in the middle of the floor looking about him.

"Superb!" he cried. "Just the very place! What a magnificent light--so direct, and not a reflection from anything."

It was, indeed, an ideal studio to one accustomed to the disorder of beautiful things. Not only was there a hip roof, with heavy, stained beams and brown shingles, but near its crotch opened a wide, round-topped window which shed its light on the dilapidated relics of two generations--old spinning-wheels, hair trunks, high-post, uncoupled bedsteads; hair-cloth sofas, and faded curtains of yellow damask, while near the door rested an enormous jar brought up from the garden to catch the drip of a leaky shingle--all so much lumber to Olivia, but of precious value to the young painter, especially the water jar, which reminded him of those he had seen in Sicily when he was tramping through its villages sketching.

"Just the place--oh, wonderful! Wonderful! Let me shout down for Bundy and we'll move everything into shape right away."

"Are you going to take them out or push them back?" exclaimed Olivia, her eyes growing wide with wonder as she watched him begin work.

"No, not going to move out one of them. You just wait--I'll show you!" The boy in him was coming out now.

And Olivia did wait, uttering little cries of delight or inquiry meanwhile, as she tripped after him, her skirts lifted above her dainty ankles to keep them from the dust. "Oh, that ugly old bureau; shan't we send it away?" followed by "Yes, I do think that's better." And, "Oh, are you going to put that screen there!" gouty old Bundy joining in with "Well, fo' de Lawd, Miss 'Livy, I neber did see no ol' trunk come to life agin befo' by jes' shovin' it 'roun'."

"And now get a sheet!" cried Adam, when everything had been arranged to his liking. "We'll tack it across the lower half of the window. Then Bundy, please go down and bring up two buckets of water and pour it into this jar. Now, Mrs. Colton, come along, you and I will bring up blossoms enough to fill it," and the two dashed downstairs and out into the orchard with a swoop of two swallows out for an airing.

Even Bundy had to admit to old Dinah, when he had returned to the kitchen, that the transformation of a lumber-room into a cosy studio was little less than miraculous.

"Dat painter gemman do beat de lan'," he chuckled. "Got dat ol' garret lookin' like a parlor fixed up for comp'ny. Ye oughter see dem ol' hair-backs wid de bottoms busted--got 'em kivered up wid dem patchwork bedspreads an' lookin' like dey was fit for de ol' mist'ess's bedroom. An' he's got dem ol' yaller cut'ains we useter hab in de settin'-room hung on de fo'-posters as sort o' screens fencin' off one corner ob de room jes' by de do'. Dat ol' carpet's spread out; dat one-legged spinnin'-wheel's propped up and standin' roun'; dem ol' stable lanterns is hung to de rafters. I clar' to goodness, ye wouldn't believe! Now dey jes' sont me down for two buckets o' water to fill dat ol' jar we useter hab settin' out here on de po'ch. He and de young mist'ess is out now lookin' for peach blossoms to fill it. He's a wonder, I tell ye!"