It was always built
directly in front of the sitting-room tent, so that Mrs. Howard and
Mrs. Winship could sit there if they liked; but the young people
preferred to lie lazily on their cushions and saddles under the oak-
tree, a little distance from the blaze. The clear, red firelight
danced and flickered, and the sparks rose into the sombre darkness
fantastically, while the ruddy glow made the great oak an enchanted
palace, into whose hollow dome they never tired of gazing. When the
light streamed highest, the bronze green of the foliage was turned
into crimson, and, as it died now and then, the stars winked brightly
through the thousand tiny windows formed by the interlacing branches.
'Well,' said the doctor, bringing his Chinese lounging-chair into the
circle, and lighting his pipe so as to be thoroughly happy and
comfortable, 'will you banish distinctions of age and allow me to sit
among you this evening?'
'Certainly,' Margery said; 'that's the very point of the celebration.
This is Admission Day, you know, and why shouldn't we admit you?'
'True; and having put myself into a holiday humour by dining off
Pancho's dish of guisado (I suppose to-night of all nights we must
call beef and onion stew by its local name), I will proceed to
business, and we will talk about California. By the way, I shall
only conduct the exercises, for I feel rather embarrassed by the fact
that I've never killed, or been killed by, a bear, never been bitten
by a tarantula, poisoned by a rattlesnake, assaulted by a stage-
robber, nor anything of that sort.
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