The house should be of stones fitly set, brought down in ships from the land of “_les_ Yankees” and it should have an airy belvedere, with a gilded image tiptoeing and shining on its peak, and from it you should see, far across the gleaming folds of the river, the red roof of Belles Demoiselles, the country-seat. At the big stone gate there should be a porter’s lodge, and it should be a privilege even to see the ground.
Truly they were a family fine enough and fancy-free enough to have fine wishes, yet happy enough where they were to have had no wish but to live there always.
To those who by whatever fortune wandered into the garden of Belles Demoiselles some summer afternoon as the sky was reddening toward evening, it was lovely to see the family gathered out upon the tiled pavement at the foot of the broad front steps, gaily chatting and jesting, with that ripple of laughter that comes pleasingly from a bevy of girls. The father would be found seated among them, the center of attention and compliment, witness, arbiter, umpire, critic, by his beautiful children’s unanimous appointment, but the single vassal, too, of seven absolute sovereigns.
Now they would draw their chairs near together in eager discussion of some new step in the dance or the adjustment of some rich adornment. Now they would start about him with excited comments to see the eldest fix a bunch of violets in his buttonhole. Now the twins would move down a walk after some unusual flower, and be greeted on their return with the high-pitched notes of delighted feminine surprise.
As evening came on they would draw more quietly about their paternal center. Often their chairs were forsaken, and they grouped themselves on the lower steps one above another, and surrendered themselves to the tender influences of the approaching night. At such an hour the passer on the river, already attracted by the dark figures of the broad-roofed mansion and its woody garden standing against the glowing sunset, would hear the voices of the hidden group rise from the spot in the soft harmonies of an evening song, swelling clearer and clearer as the thrill of music warmed them into feeling, and presently joined by the deeper tones of the father’s voice; then, as the daylight passed quite away, all would be still, and the passer would know that the beautiful home had gathered its nestlings under its wings.
