Grace Harlowes Golden Summer | Page 6

Mrs. Gray and Tom as Grace made this fervent speech. "Come and look at it again," said Tom briefly. There was a touch of exultation in his even tones.
Hand in hand, like two children, the youthful pair swung gayly along the narrow path that led from the highway to picturesque Upton Heights. Nearing it, they became suddenly silent in the face of its undeniable claim to beauty. Dazzlingly white against the magnificent trees which surrounded it, it stood in the middle of a grassy plateau that rolled gently down to the woodland path in long sloping green terraces.
"How beautiful it looks!" Grace gazed almost reverently at the rambling old house with its wide, high-pillared verandas. It was like some gracious, stately person whose very watchword was hospitality, she thought. Built more than a century before, by a long-since departed Upton, it had not been used as a residence by his descendants. Due to a clause of command in the original owner's will, it had ever afterward been sedulously kept in repair. To her beauty-loving soul, it now seemed to have taken on a new lease of life. The house itself rejoiced in a fresh white luster and the grounds showed recent care.
"It was nice in you to bring me here, Tom," she again said. "You knew I loved this old place, didn't you?"
"Yes. Suppose we go closer to it," suggested Tom, drawing her gently forward.
Her hand still in his, Grace allowed him to conduct her to the flight of white stone steps set in the terrace. They led upward to the wide flagstone walk which in turn stretched levelly up to meet the spacious veranda.
"Shut your eyes," directed Tom, when they had mounted the steps to the veranda floor. His terse direction contained a touch of repressed excitement which informed Grace that the surprise was at hand. But what it might be she had not the remotest suspicion.
Obediently her long lashes swept her cheeks in compliance with love's command.
Dropping her hand, Tom approached the massive front door. There was a curious clicking sound, like the turn of a key in a lock, then Tom was back at her side. His hand again caught one of her own. Again he drew her forward. There was a slight tremor in his voice as he said:
"Open your eyes, Princess, and enter your castle."
Her veiling eye-lids lifting, Grace found herself on the threshold of Upton Heights, peering wonderingly into the dim reception hall with its huge fireplace, beam ceiling and curving Colonial staircase.
"It's a splendid surprise, Tom!" she exclaimed warmly. "I've always wished to see the inside of this wonderful place. How in the world did you ever manage to get the key to it?"
Tom smiled very tenderly into the eager face so near his own. "You've missed the biggest part of the surprise, Grace," he answered. "Don't you understand yet why we came out here? Do you think I would invite a royal princess to enter her castle if it weren't really her very own?"
"You don't mean--you can't mean--Oh, Tom!" Grace drew a quick, ecstatic breath that was half sob. A vagrant breeze set the leaves of the sentinel trees to sighing their approval as they looked down on the little tableau of human happiness.
"It is your very own House Behind the World, dear," Tom assured her. "Our future home. It is the gift of our Fairy Godmother to both of us. She purchased it of Robert Upton the day after we came from Overton. She had spoken of it to Mr. Upton long ago and was only waiting for the good news of our engagement. She knew how much you had always cared about it."
"We must go straight down to the automobile and make her come back with us," was Grace's happy cry. "I am so anxious to explore our marvelous new possession. But we must have our Fairy Godmother with us. I can't really believe yet that anything so glorious has happened to ordinary me. It's more than a surprise. It's a positive miracle. My own beautiful House Behind the World! But I know an even better name for it. It's not one I thought of myself. That glory belongs to Kathleen West. You know, Tom, she once wrote an allegorical play. We produced it when I was in my senior year at Overton. I played the part of Loyalheart who leaves Haven Home to go into the Land of College. When first it began to dawn upon me that you meant this wonder to be my very own, it came to me like a flash that it was more than the House Behind the World. Don't you see, Tom? It's really and truly, Haven Home!"
CHAPTER III
FOR AULD LANG SYNE
"And so, having ended her pilgrimage through the Land of College, Loyalheart