The proposal was enthusiastically entertained by scores of girls struggling disconsolately for a living. The idea of homes and gardens, cows and fowls of their own, with Art as a pastime, presented itself to their youthful imagination as a possibility almost too good to be realized.
Travers had sought out Gwyneth, and endeavoured by all means to converse with her. She steadily avoided him. Her heart, however, was breaking; the freshness was departing from her spirit. She was restless; felt she must have change and fuller occupation.
Her father wrote begging her to return. She replied that she could not settle down again to the old life; but would he, she asked, let her know whether she and some of her friends could establish themselves on the southern end of the lake? Eventually a scheme was formulated whereby five hundred acres should be ploughed and prepared, fifty cottages built, and a site laid out for the proposed novel colony.
Ill at ease himself, fearful of his daughter's dissatisfaction with the part he had lately played, Elms was glad to facilitate Gwyneth's return to the neighbourhood, though not to his home.
As to the domestic arrangements other designs were in his mind. The White House, the natural centre, must be his. It ought not to be a difficult matter for a man of his parts to win the widow of the deceased doctor. Meanwhile Gwyneth was just as well out of the way at the other end of the lake. If she must go into retirement, better there than to a convent.
The perfected scheme was laid by Gwyneth before a special meeting of "the Salon of the South," and Artistic and Literary Club for Ladies, that Pennie Scribblings had done much to promote.
With a beating heart Gwyneth ascended the lift and
