“Oh, yes indeed!” Evelyn exclaimed, her face lighting up with pleasure, then with gathering tears and in low, tremulous tones, “Papa had promised to take me to both places some day,” she said.

CHAPTER VII.

Fairview and Ion.

It had been a cloudy afternoon and the rain began to fall as, shortly after sunset, the Lelands left the cars for the Fairview family carriage.

“A dismal home-coming for you, my love,” remarked Lester, as the coachman closed the door on them and mounted to his perch again.

“Oh, no!” returned Elsie brightly, “the rain is needed, and we are well sheltered from it.  Yet I fear it maybe dismal to Evelyn; but, my dear child, try to keep up your spirits; it does not always rain in this part of the country.”

“Oh, no! of course not, auntie,” said the little girl, with a low laugh of amusement; “and I should not want to live here if it did not rain sometimes.”

“I should think not, indeed,” said her uncle.  “Well, Eva, we will hope the warmth of your welcome will atone to you for the inclemency of the weather.”

“Yes,” said Elsie, “we want you to feel that it is a home-coming to you as well as to us.”

“Thank you both very much,” murmured Evelyn, her voice a little broken with the thought of her orphaned condition; “I shall try to deserve your great kindness.”

“We have done nothing yet to call for so strong an expression of gratitude, Eva,” remarked her uncle in a lively tone.

In kitchen and dining-room at Fairview great preparations were going forward; in the one a table was laid, with the finest satin damask, glittering silver, cut-glass and china; in the other sounds and scents told of a coming “feast of fat things.”

“Clar to goodness! ef it ain’t a pourin’ down like de clouds was a wantin’ for to drownd Miss Elsie an’ de rest!” exclaimed a young mulatto girl, coming in from a back veranda, whence she had been taking an observation of the weather; “an’ its that dark, Aunt Kitty, yo’ couldn’t see yo’ hand afo’ yo’ face.”

“Hope Uncle Cuff keep de road and don’t upset de kerridge,” returned Aunt Kitty, the cook, opening her oven-door to glance at a fine young fowl browning beautifully there, and sending forth a most savory smell.

“He’d larf at de wery idear of upsettin’ dat vehicle, he would, kase he tinks dar ain’t nobody else knows de road ekal to hisself; but den ’taint always de folks what makes de biggest boastin’ dat kin do de best; am it now, Lizzie?”

“No, I reckon ‘taint, Aunt Kitty; but doan you be a prognosticatin’ ob evil and skearin’ folks out deir wits fo’ de fac’s am ’stablished.”

“An’ ain’t gwine fo’ to be ’stablished,” put in another voice; “’spose de family been trabling roun’ de worl’ to come back an’ git harm right afo’ deir own do’?  ’Co’se not.”

“Hark! dere dey is dis bressed minit’, I hear de soun’ o’ de wheels and de hosses’ feet,” exclaimed Aunt Kitty, slamming to her oven-door, laying down the spoon with which she had been basting her fowl, and hastily exchanging her dark cotton apron for a white one.