" Eventually it spread, and
"Madame Bo-Peep's ranch" was as often mentioned as the "Rancho de las
Sombras."
Came the long, hot season from May to September, when work is scarce
on the ranches. Octavia passed the days in a kind of lotus-eater's
dream. Books, hammocks, correspondence with a few intimate friends, a
renewed interest in her old water-colour box and easel--these
disposed of the sultry hours of daylight. The evenings were always
sure to bring enjoyment. Best of all were the rapturous horseback
rides with Teddy, when the moon gave light over the wind-swept
leagues, chaperoned by the wheeling night-hawk and the startled owl.
Often the Mexicans would come up from their shacks with their guitars
and sing the weirdest of heart-breaking songs. There were long, cosy
chats on the breezy gallery, and an interminable warfare of wits
between Teddy and Mrs. MacIntyre, whose abundant Scotch shrewdness
often more than overmatched the lighter humour in which she was
lacking.
And the nights came, one after another, and were filed away by weeks
and months--nights soft and languorous and fragrant, that should
have driven Strephon to Chloe over wires however barbed, that might
have drawn Cupid himself to hunt, lasso in hand, among those amorous
pastures--but Teddy kept his fences up.
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