st homes they had ever beheld. A
long, low, roomy building, modelled in the Mission style that Lady Gray
so greatly admired; whose spacious verandas and cloistered walks invited
to delightful days out of doors; while everywhere were flowers in bloom,
fountains playing, vine-clad arbors and countless cosy nooks, shadowed
by magnificent trees. A lawn as smooth as velvet, dotted here and there
by electric light poles whose radiance could turn night into day.

For a moment nobody spoke; then admiration broke forth in wondering
exclamations, while the host helped his wife to alight, asking:

"Well, Erminie, does it suit you?"

"Suit? Dear, I never dreamed of anything better than a plain shack on a
mountain side. That's what you called it--but this--this is no shack.
It's more like a palace!"

"Well, the main thing is to make it a home."

"Is it as good as the 'cabin,' father?" asked Leslie, coming up and
laying his hand on Mr. Ford's shoulder.

"Let us hope it will be! If the first inmates are peace and good will.
Peace and good will," he repeated, gravely. Then his accustomed gayety
replaced his seriousness and he waved his hand toward the entrance,
saying:

"Queen Erminie, enter in and possess your kingdom! Your maids of honor
with you!"

"My heart!" cried Alfaretta, following her hostess, like a girl in a
dream. "I thought 'twould be just another up-mounting sort of place, not
near so nice as Deerhurst or the Towers, but it's splendid more 'n they
are, either one or both together."

"Wonderful, what money can do in this land of the free!" remarked
Herbert, critically estimating the establishment. "Think of a man having
his own electric light plant away up here! Why, if it weren't for the
mountains yonder one could fancy this is Newport or Long Branch."

"Without the sea, Bert. Even money can't bring the sea to the
mountain-tops," said Helena, though her own face was aglow with
admiration.

"It can do the next best thing to it. Look yonder," said Monty, pointing
where a glimmer of sunset-tinted water showed through a hedge of trees.

"Let's go there. It certainly is water," urged Jim Barlow.

"Well, Leslie told me there was a strange waterfall near San Leon and I
suppose the same money has pressed that into service. To think! That
'Railroad Boss' earned his first quarter selling papers on the train! He
was talking about the 'cabin' as we came along. It had two rooms and he
lived in it alone with his mother.