midday
The neighbouring Negroes , with generous imagination , fixed his mythical and elusive treasure at a million dollars . Not one of them had the faintest conception of the bulk or purchasing power of one million dollars in gold ; but when one builds a castle in the air , why not make it lofty and spacious ? From this unwholesome atmosphere Ben Dudley found relief , as he grew older , in frequent visits to Clarendon , which invariably ended at the Treadwells ' , who were , indeed , distant relatives . He had one good horse , and in an hour or less could leave behind him the shabby old house , falling into ruin , the demented old man , digging in the disordered yard , the dumb old woman watching him from her inscrutable eyes ; and by a change as abrupt as that of coming from a dark room into the brightness of midday , find himself in a lovely garden , beside a beautiful girl , whom he loved devotedly , but who kept him on the ragged edge of an uncertainty that was stimulating enough , but very wearing . _ Twenty _ The summer following Colonel French 's return to Clarendon was unusually cool , so cool that the colonel , pleasantly occupied with his various plans and projects , scarcely found the heat less bearable than that of New York at the same season . During a brief torrid spell he took Phil to a Southern mountain resort for a couple of weeks , and upon another occasion ran up to New York for a day or two on business in reference to the machinery for the cotton mill , which was to be ready for installation some time during the fall . But these were brief interludes , and did not interrupt the current of his life , which was flowing very smoothly and pleasantly in its new channel , if not very swiftly , for even the colonel was not able to make things move swiftly in Clarendon during the summer time , and he was well enough pleased to see them move at all .