Seated beside her father, who, knowing the road to Las Golondrinas, was driving the car, Patsy was keeping up a running fire of delighted exclamation over the tropical beauty of the country through which they were passing.
“I’m so glad you bought this splendid place, Dad,” she rattled along in her quick, eager fashion. “After I’m through college maybe we can come down to Florida and spend a whole winter.”
“I had that idea in mind when I bought it,” returned her father. “It will take considerable time to put Las Golondrinas in good condition again. Old Fereda let it run down. There are some fine orange groves on the estate, but they need attention. The house is in good condition. It’s one of those old-timers and solidly built. The grounds were in bad shape, though. I’ve had a gang of darkies working on them ever since I bought the place. They’re a lazy lot. Still they’ve done quite a little toward getting the lawns smooth again and thinning the trees and shrubs.”
“Who was this Manuel de Fereda, anyway?” questioned Patsy curiously. “I know he was Spanish and died, and that’s all.”
“I know very little about him, my dear. Mr. Haynes, the agent who sold me the property, had never seen him. In fact, had never heard of him until Fereda’s granddaughter put the place in his hands for sale. She told Haynes that her grandfather was crazy. Haynes said she seemed very anxious to get rid of the property and get away from it.”
“There’s just enough about the whole thing to arouse one’s curiosity,” sighed Patsy. “I’d love to know more about this queer, crazy old Spaniard. Maybe we’ll meet some people living near the estate who will be able to tell us more about him.”
“Oh, you’ll probably run across someone who knows the history of the Feredas,” lightly assured her father. “Neither the old mammy I engaged as cook, nor the two maids can help you out, though. They come from Miami and know no one in the vicinity. I’m still hunting for a good, trustworthy man for general work. We shall need one while we’re here, to run errands, see to the horses and make himself useful.”
“You must have worked awfully hard to get things ready for us, Dad.”
Patsy slipped an affectionately grateful hand into her father’s arm.
“I could have done better if I had known from the start that you were really coming,” he returned. “I had to hustle around considerably. At least you’re here now and your aunt can be depended upon to do the rest. I hope she will get along nicely with her darkie help. They’re usually as hard to manage as a lot of unruly children.”
“Oh, she will,” predicted Patsy. “She always makes everybody except Patsy do as she says. Patsy likes to have her own way, you know.”
“So I’ve understood,” smiled Mr. Carroll. “Patsy usually gets it, too, I’m sorry to say.”
“You’re not a bit sorry and you know it,” flatly contradicted Patsy. “You’d hate to have me for a daughter if I were a meek, quiet Patsy who never had an opinion of her own.”
“I can’t imagine such a thing,” laughed her father. “I’m so used to being bullied by a certain self-willed young person that I rather like it.”
“You’re a dear,” gaily approved Patsy. “I don’t ever really bully you, you know. I just tell you what you have to do and then you go and do it. That’s not bullying, is it?”
“Not in our family,” satirically assured Mr. Carroll.
Whereupon they both laughed.
Meanwhile, as they continued to talk in the half-jesting, intimate fashion of two persons who thoroughly understand each other, the big black car ate up the miles that lay between Palm Beach and Las Golondrinas. As the party drew nearer their destination the highly ornamental villas which had lined both sides of the road began to grow fewer and farther apart. They saw less of color and riotous bloom and more of the vivid but monotonous green of the tropics.
They turned at last from the main highway and due east into a white sandy road which ran through a natural park of stately green pines. Under the shadow of the pines the car continued for a mile or so, then broke out into the open and the sunlight again.
“Oh, look!”
Half rising in the seat, Patsy pointed. Ahead of them and dazzlingly blue in the morning sunshine lay the sea.
“How near is our new home to the ocean, Dad?” she asked eagerly.
“There it is yonder.”
Taking a hand briefly from the wheel, Mr. Carroll indicated a point some distance ahead and to the right where the red-tiled roof of a house showed in patches among the wealth of surrounding greenery.
“Why, it’s only a little way from the sea!” Patsy cried out. “Not more than half a mile, I should judge.”
“About three quarters,” corrected her father. “The bathing beach is excellent and there’s an old boathouse, too.”
“Are there any boats?” was the quick question.
“A couple of dinghys. Both leaky. I gave them to one of my black fellows. Old Fereda was evidently not a sea dog. The boathouse was full of odds and ends of rubbish. I had it cleared up and repainted inside and out. It will make you a good bath house. It’s a trim looking little shack now.”
Presently rounding a curve in the white, ribbon-like road, the travelers found themselves again riding southward. To their left, picturesque masses of jungle sloped down to the ocean below.
Soon to their right, however, a high iron fence appeared, running parallel with the road. It formed the eastern boundary of Las Golondrinas. Behind it lay the estate itself, stretching levelly toward the red-roofed house in the distance. Long neglected by its former owner, the once carefully kept lawns and hedges had put forth rank, jungle-like growth. Broad-fronded palms and palmettos drooped graceful leaves over seemingly impenetrable thickets of tangled green. Bush and hedge, once carefully pruned, now flung forth riotous untamed masses of gorgeous bloom.
“It looks more like a wilderness than a private estate,” was Patsy’s opinion as her quick eyes roved from point to point in passing.
“It looked a good deal more like a jungle a few weeks ago,” returned Mr. Carroll. “Wait until you pass the gates; then you’ll begin to notice a difference. The improvements my black boys have made don’t show from the road.”
For a distance of half a mile, the car continued on the sandy highway. At last Mr. Carroll brought it to a stop before the tall, wrought-iron gates of the main entrance to the estate. Springing from the automobile, he went forward to open them.
“Every man his own gate-opener,” he called out jovially. “Drive ahead, Patsy girl.”
Patsy had already slipped into the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel. Immediately her father called out, she drove the machine slowly forward and through the now wide-open gateway.
“Do let me drive the rest of the way, Dad,” she implored as Mr. Carroll regained the car.
“All right. Follow this trail wherever it goes and you’ll finally bring up at the house,” was the good-humored injunction.
By “trail” Mr. Carroll meant the drive, which, flanked by hedges of perfumed oleander, wound through the grounds, describing a sweeping curve as it approached the quaint, grayish-white building that had for generations sheltered the Feredas. A little beyond the house and to its rear, they glimpsed rank upon rank of orange trees, on which golden fruit and creamy blossoms hung together amongst the glossy green of foliage.
A light land breeze, freighted with the fragrance of many flowers, blew softly upon the Wayfarers. Its scented sweetness filled them with fresh delight and appreciation of their new home.
Patsy brought the car to a stop on the drive, directly in front of an arched doorway, situated