The Debtor | Page 6

home at all
and not afield, but they had been possessed of the spring activity, until
they reached the Ranger place, where the new-comers to Banbridge
lived. The Ranger place was, in some respects the most imposing house
in Banbridge. It stood well back from the road, in grounds which
deserved the name. They were extensive, dotted with stately groups of
spruces and pines, and there was in the rear of the house a pond with a
rustic bridge, fringed with willows, which gave the place its name,
"Willow Lake." The house had formerly been owned by two maiden
women with much sentiment, the sisters of the present owner. The
place was "Willow Lake." The pond was the "Willow Mere," in
defiance of the name of the place. The little rustic bridge was the
"Bridge of Sighs," for some obscure reason, perhaps buried in the
sentimental past of the sisters. And the little hollow which was
profusely sprinkled with violets in the spring was "Idlewild." It was in
"Idlewild" that the new family, perverse to the spirit of the day, idled
when the callers drove up the road in the best coach.
There was in the little violet-sprinkled hollow a small building with
many peaks as to its roof, and diamond-paned windows which had been
fitted out with colored glass in a hideous checker-work of orange and
crimson and blue, which the departed sisters had called, none but
themselves knew why, "The Temple." On the south side grew a
rose-bush of the kind which flourished most easily in the village, taking
most kindly to the soil. It was an ordinary kind of rose. The sisters had

called it an eglantine, but it was not an eglantine. They had been very
fond, when the weather permitted, of sitting in this edifice with their
work. The place was fitted up with a rustic table and two quite
uncomfortable rustic chairs, particularly uncomfortable for the sisters,
who were of a thin habit of body.
When James Ranger, who was himself not a man of sentiment, showed
the new aspirant for the renting of the place this fantastic building, he
spoke of it with a species of apology.
"My sisters had this built," said he, "and it cost considerable," for he
did not wish to disparage the money value of anything.
When the family were established in their new home, one of the first
things which they did--they signifying Mrs. Carroll, Miss Anna Carroll,
the daughters Miss Ina and Miss Charlotte Carroll, and the son Edward
Carroll, called Eddy by the family--was to march in a body upon the
little "Temple," and, armed with stones, proceed with shouts of
merriment to smash out every spear of the crimson and orange and blue
glass in the windows. They then demolished the rustic furniture and
made of that a noble bonfire. Mrs. Carroll had indeed wondered,
between fits of laughter, in her sweet drawl, if they ought to destroy the
furniture, as it could not be said, strictly speaking, to belong to them to
destroy, but she was promptly vetoed by all the others in merry chorus.
"They are too hideous to live," said Ina; "they ought to be burned. It is
our plain duty to burn them."
Therefore they burned them, and brought out some of the parlor chairs
to replace them. Then Eddy was sent to Rosenstein's, the village
dry-goods store of Banbridge, for yards of green mosquito netting,
which, the Carroll credit being newly established with a blare of
trumpets, he purchased. Then they had tacked up the green mosquito
netting over the window and door gaps, for they had forcibly wrenched
the ornate door from its hinges and added it to the bonfire, and the
temple of the Muses stood in a film of gently undulating green under
the green willows, and was rather a thing of beauty.

The Carrolls loved to pass away the time in that retreat veiled with
cloudy green, through which they could see the dull glimmer of the
pond, like an old shield of silver, reflecting the waving garlands of the
willows, which at that time of year were as beautiful as trees of heaven,
having effects of waving lines of liquid green light, and the charming
violet-blue turf around them.
The afternoon of the call all the female members of the Carroll family
were out there. Captain Carroll was in the City, and Eddy, who, being a
boy, was more susceptible to the lash of atmospheric influence, had
gone fishing.
"I wonder why Eddy likes to go fishing," said Mrs. Carroll, in her
sweet drawl. "Eddy never caught anything."
"You don't have a very high opinion of your son's powers as a
fisherman, Amy," said Ina, and they all laughed. The Carrolls were an
easy-to-laugh family, and always