And there were many pleasant
things to do in preparation for his coming. More roses were to be
gathered, and other flowers also, were blooming gayly among the sober
vegetables as if it were mid-summer. So that the first thing Ruth did
was to strip the garden, with David to help her and no one to hinder.
The judge and William had gone away from the house as soon as breakfast
was over, saying they would try to return in time to see the visitor.
Miss Penelope was busy in seeing that the coffee-pot was washed with hot
water and rinsed with cold, and scoured inside and out till it shone
like burnished silver. The widow Broadnax, too, was as busy as she ever
was, sitting in her usual place in the chimney-corner, looking like some
large, clumsily graven image in dark stone, and watching her
half-sister's every movement without winking or turning her head. So
that Ruth and David were left to follow their own fanciful devices, free
to put flowers everywhere. They wrought out their fancies to the fullest
and the more fantastic, as the artistic instinct rarely fails to do in
its first freedom.
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