ed Choo Loo, who had found his bachelor employers in the
old days somewhat dull and unobservant in this respect.

"Missie like?" he asked this morning, indicating the wreath of wild
cranberry vine round the dish of chicken. Then he set a mound of white
raspberries in the middle of the table, starred with gold-hearted brown
coreopsis, and asked again, "Missie like dat?" pleased at Clover's
answering nod and smile. Noiselessly he came and went in his white-shod
feet, fetching in one dish after another, and when all was done, making
a sort of dual salaam to the two ladies, and remarking "Allee yeady
now," after which he departed, his pigtail swinging from side to side
and his blue cotton garments flapping in the wind as he walked across to
the cook-house.

Delicious breaths of roses and mignonette floated in as the party
gathered about the breakfast table. They came from the flower-beds just
outside, which Clover sedulously tended, watered, and defended from the
roving cattle, which showed a provoking preference for heliotropes over
penstamens whenever they had a chance to get at them. Cows were a great
trial, she considered; and yet after all they were the object of their
lives in the Valley, their _raison d'etre_, and must be put up with
accordingly.

"Do you suppose the Youngs have landed yet?" asked Elsie as she
qualified her husband's coffee with a dash of thick cream.

"They should have got in last night if the steamer made her usual time.
I dare say we shall find a telegram at St. Helen's to-morrow if we go
in," answered her brother-in-law.

"Yes, or possibly Phil will ride out and fetch it. He is always glad of
an excuse to come. I wonder what sort of girl Miss Young is. You and
Clover never have said much about her."

"There isn't much to say. She's just an ordinary sort of girl,--nice
enough and all that, not pretty."

"Oh, Geoff, that's not quite fair. She's rather pretty, that is, she
would be if she were not stiff and shy and so very badly dressed. I
didn't get on very much with her at Clovelly, but I dare say we shall
like her here; and when she limbers out and becomes used to our ways,
she'll make a nice neighbor."

"Dear me, I hope so," remarked Elsie. "It's really quite important what
sort of a girl Miss Young turns out to be. A stiff person whom you had
to see every day would be horrid and spoil everything. The only thing we
need, the only possible improvement to the High Valley, would be a few