His suspicious gravity had entirely
disappeared, leaving his face a beaming mirror of beneficence and
good-humor.
"So you _are_ men," he said cheerily, "men in the bud, like leaves on a
tree. But you seem boys to a tough old stump of humanity such as I am.
That is my way,--my child Thelma, though they tell me she is a woman
grown, is always a babe to me. 'Tis one of the many privileges of the
old, to see the world about them always young and full of children."
And he led the way past the wide-open lattice, where they could dimly
perceive the spinning-wheel standing alone, as though thinking deeply of
the fair hands that had lately left it idle, and so round to the actual
front of the house, which was exceedingly picturesque, and literally
overgrown with roses from ground to roof. The entrance door stood
open;--it was surrounded by a wide, deep porch richly carved and
grotesquely ornamented, having two comfortable seats within it, one on
each side. Through this they went, involuntarily brushing down as they
passed, a shower of pink and white rose-leaves, and stepped into a wide
passage, where upon walls of dark, polished pine, hung a large
collection of curiously shaped weapons, all of primitive manufacture,
such as stone darts and rough axes, together with bows and arrows and
two-handled swords, huge as the fabled weapon of William Wallace.
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