CHAPTER XI
IN WHICH TRUTH HOLDS HER OWN
Perhaps, as a student of human nature, Roscoe Howard rather looked forward with enjoyment to his encounter with Colonel Yancey in the matter of the purchase of Guildford. With the promptness and decision which gave the fundamental strength to his character, he at once investigated the whole transaction, beginning with the private history of the syndicate, which, in his bitterness, Sherman Lee was only too ready to give him. He drew from Carolina, by adroit conversations, much of the story of Colonel Yancey's connection with the Lee family abroad, and, to a man with an imagination, he soon was able to formulate, though by a somewhat elliptical process, a theory concerning Colonel Yancey's designs on Carolina, which fitted the case as it stood, but which needed a personal interview with the colonel to enable Mr. Howard to decide whether the man was anxious to marry Carolina from love of herself alone or with the ulterior motive of having discovered some unsuspected source of wealth on the Guildford estate.
"This man is a very accomplished rascal!" he said to himself, as he followed the winding clues in the labyrinth of the colonel's transactions. "I feel sure that Sherman's money is done for. He will never get any of that back. Yet Yancey, rascal as he is, is too shrewd to put himself in the clutches of the law. However, he is also clever enough to be willing to have Sherman think him a fool for failing. At the same time, I believe that Yancey has made a fortune. The question is, where is it?"
He fell to musing on the man's extraordinary career. Serving governments with honesty for years, waiting, studying, learning, biding his time until he could make a grand haul without fear of detection, with his honourable career to throw suspicion off the scent, and finding his quarry at last in wrecking the orphaned children of his best friend.
It was a curious type of character, – a curious code of honour, – but not phenomenal. It simply showed the effect of climate on a man's definition of honesty. Doubtless Colonel Yancey considered the syndicate of New Yorkers "damned Yankees," and therefore his legitimate prey. Did not the carpet-baggers rob the South? And, as to getting possession of Guildford, even if only in order to force Carolina to accept him with it-all's fair in love and war. Doubtless Colonel Yancey was an honourable man in his own eyes, and ready to defend his honour to the death if necessary. Mr. Howard had spent several years in the South, and did not underestimate his personal danger in the coming interview should he impinge on what the colonel was pleased to call his "honour." Mr. Howard felt that he must fortify himself with serpent-wisdom and dove-harmlessness.
For Colonel Yancey was coming home, and Mr. Howard had arranged for a meeting with him without stating his errand.
He was prepared for a confident, even a dignified, bearing in the colonel, but let it be said that he had not looked for the jaunty air with which Colonel Yancey met him when Mr. Howard called at his office at the time appointed. Considering that Colonel Yancey must be aware that Mr. Howard knew of the crookedness of the whole transaction in oil, his audacity was, to say the least, extraordinary when he rose, held out his hand to the older man, and said, genially:
"Well, sir, what can I do for you?"
The impertinence of the remark, to say nothing of its bad taste under the circumstances, for a moment staggered even the Northerner's good breeding, and, for one brief breathing spell, Mr. Howard felt impelled to imperil the whole situation by the trenchant reply:
"Not a damned thing, sir!"
But his self-control came to his rescue, and with it a determination to master the natural and inevitable irritation which many Northern men feel at being called upon to transact business with a Southern man, and which all Southern men feel when doing business with Northern men. The whole code is different and all the conditions misunderstood. Nor will there be harmony until each endeavours to obtain and comprehend the other's point of view.
It was only by detaining the conversation upon strictly neutral grounds for a few moments that Mr. Howard was able to see that the fault lay largely with himself. Perhaps Colonel Yancey was unaware that his visitor knew anything of his private history or was at all interested in the Lees. It was only Mr. Howard's smarting under the real injuries Colonel Yancey had inflicted on Winchester Lee's children which caused him to resent Colonel Yancey's assumption of the role which he essayed on all occasions and inevitably with strangers. At first, he was the bland, suave, genial, open-hearted Southerner. But at the first hint of Mr. Howard's errand, the openness snapped shut. The thin lips were compressed, the crafty eyes narrowed, and Colonel Wayne Yancey, like a pirate craft, "prepared to repel boarders."
"Now, Mr. Howard," he said, "in broaching the subject of the purchase of Guildford, may I ask whom you are representing?"
"Why should you imagine that I am representing any one?" inquired Mr. Howard. "Why not imagine that I want Guildford for my own use? It is a good property. It has a water-front. It is picturesque. Why not suppose that I merely want to acquire a winter home in South Carolina?"
"Then why not look at property just as good, nearer to the town of Enterprise than Guildford lies, and with a good stone house already on it? For instance, my sister's late husband's place, Whitehall, is for sale."
"Thank you for mentioning it," said Mr. Howard, "but I especially want Guildford."
"Then-pardon me for saying so-you must have some ulterior motive for wanting it, for the place is worth no more than the adjoining property of Sunnymede or half a dozen other contiguous estates."
"That is exactly the thought which came to me, if you will pardon me for mentioning it, when I heard that you had bought and foreclosed the mortgage on Guildford!"
Mr. Howard laid his finger-tips together, with a quiet satisfaction in thus having trapped his antagonist. But he little knew Wayne Yancey.
With an assumption of honesty, which fairly took the Northern man's breath away, Colonel Yancey looked first out of the window, as if to consider, and then said:
"You are right, Mr. Howard, and to a man of honour like yourself, I will tell you the real reason why I bought the mortgage on Guildford, why I foreclosed it in order to own the place, and why I hope you will drop the idea of purchasing it, for I tell you frankly at the outset that, if you press the matter, I shall simply put a prohibitive price upon the property, and you have no legal recourse by which you can compel me to part with it. Please bear this in mind. And for explanation of this unalterable decision-here it is. I love Carolina Lee. I told her father so when she was only a girl of sixteen in London. He gave me his blessing, and told me he would rather leave her to me than to any other man in the world. He was my dearest friend. I was the unhappy means of bringing a loss on Sherman, which it shall be my life-work to make good. If Winchester Lee can hear me in the place where he has gone, he knows that I mean well by both of his children. I adore Carolina, but she has refused to marry me, and, knowing her love for her old home, I obtained possession of it in order to restore it to her. If you do not believe that I mean this, ask her if I did not offer her Guildford as a free gift."
"You are a clever man, Colonel Yancey, and you knew then, as well as you know now, that to offer a girl of Carolina's spirit a valuable gift like that was to insult the Lee pride. What did you hope to gain by it?"
"The girl herself! I confess it without shame, sir. I would move heaven and earth in order to have that girl for my wife! You do not know Wayne Yancey, Mr. Howard, or you would know that that means more than appears on the surface."
"I may not know you completely, Colonel Yancey, but I know you well enough to believe that part of your statement implicitly. But you will never win her either by force or by coercion of any kind. Give her a free hand and let her come to you of her own accord, or she will not come at all."
By the expression which flitted across the colonel's slightly cruel face at Mr. Howard's words, he was convinced of one thing, and that was that the man was honestly and deeply in love with Carolina. This fact illuminated the matter somewhat.
"It would be quite true with horses," mused Colonel Yancey. "And a blooded horse and a spirited woman have many points in common."
"I freely confess to you that I wish to purchase Guildford in order to let Carolina go down there and work her will with the place. The girl has courage, good business ideas; she is a friend of my daughter's, and I am interested in the development of her character. I would just as soon leave you to make the same arrangement with her which I propose to make, if she would consent to have money transactions with you, but she will not. For what reason you and she probably know. I confess that I do not, but what you have just been good enough to tell me concerning your feelings toward her would seem to throw light upon the situation. Now, may I make a suggestion?"
"A thousand, if you will!"
"Thank you. Now, possibly an outsider may be able to give you a new point of view. Suppose you yield to Carolina's wishes, sell me the place, and thus give her the opportunity to carry out her dead father's plans. You thus provide her with a cherished life-work. You know the Lees. They are proud and grateful. To whom would her heart naturally turn? To an old married man like me, through her friendship for my daughter, or to a comparatively young man like yourself, in whose children she is as vitally interested as she must have been to heal your baby girl?"
Now Mr. Howard was deliberately playing upon the man's feelings, but he was not prepared for the change in Colonel Yancey's face.
"Did she do that?" he said, in a hoarse voice, "Did she do it?"
"Certainly she did. Who else?"
"They told me that Mrs. Goddard did it-Sister Sue told me."
"No, it is considered by the Christian Scientists-this new sect which you may have heard that Carolina has joined-that Gladys is her first case of healing. Carolina is Mrs. Goddard's pupil, and doubtless Mrs. Goddard helped her, – in the curious way they have, for I overheard Carolina telephoning Mrs. Goddard to treat her-Carolina-for fear, in your little daughter's case. I believe they heal by confidence in God's promises and the theory that mind controls matter. Wonderful, isn't it?"
"Wonderful, indeed, but the most wonderful part of it to me is that Miss Carolina was induced to render me this inestimable benefit when she-well, she used to hate me, to be quite frank. If you knew the rebuffs I have taken at her hands!"
"Well, that is one of the results of this new religion of hers. It is founded on love, and they are obliged to live it, or they fail to receive any benefits. It is a self-acting religion, and is its own detective. They regard hatred, for example, as a disease, and naturally Carolina could not, in their code, be healed herself or heal others as long as she hated you. Thus, in healing your little girl, she was working out her own salvation."
"Mr. Howard," said Colonel Yancey, with his face working painfully, "you don't know what it is to have a crippled child. You don't know the agony I have endured, looking at her beautifully formed little body and into her dear face, with its intelligent eyes, broad brow, and sweet mouth, and then realizing that all her life she must be helpless, unable to walk or even to stand, a burden to herself and others. Her feet, as perhaps you know, were perfect in shape and form. They were simply turned inward. I have gone through Gethsemane itself wondering when her tender little heart would learn its first taste of bitterness against the parents who brought her into the world to suffer so. And then to have all this load of grief lifted, to see my baby walk about and play with her little sister, and frolic as other children do, and suddenly to learn that I owe it to the woman who is my all in life-I assure you, sir, it is almost more than my heart can bear. Take Guildford on your own terms, sir! It is a small return!"
Mr. Howard held out his hand, and Colonel Yancey grasped it.
"The human heart is a curious thing, Mr. Howard. I was as determined five minutes ago as ever a man was on earth to let you plead until you lost your breath, yet I would never part with my hold on Miss Carolina through owning Guildford. Now, in the twinkling of an eye, I am ready to let you have it. I can't give it to you quickly enough. What price are you willing to pay?"
"Suppose we say the face of the mortgage, – just what it cost you?"
"Ten thousand dollars less, if you say so, Mr. Howard."
"No, I prefer to let you show your gratitude to her in some other way. I will pay what you paid."
"Good! I will have the deed made out to-day. But lose no time in telling her that Guildford is hers. She has won it for herself."
"If I tell her that, do you know what she will say?" asked Mr. Howard.
"No, what?"
"She will give all the credit to her new thought. She told me before I started that I would be successful. As she puts it, 'Nothing is ever lost in Truth.'"
"Then she considers, even though Guildford has been in my power for several years, that it was never really lost to her?"
"In her new conception of the truth, that is the way she argues."
"By Jove, Mr. Howard, I'm going to join them! I wonder if she would let me go to church with her next Sunday?"
"I'm sure she would."
But, as he turned away, Mr. Howard shook his head and said to himself: "Carolina will have to tell him what she told Noel, – of the futility of attempting to be a Scientist for the sake of the loaves and fishes."
But, indeed, Carolina had not only believed it, but, with her Bible and "Science and Health" on her knees, during the hour of the interview she had made her demonstration, so that she knew it without words. She felt it by the uplift in her own heart and the nearness of her own soul to the Infinite, so that, when Mr. Howard appeared with a beaming face to tell her, the radiance on Carolina's admonished him that she knew already.
"But you don't know all, young lady! After I had left his office, the colonel came post-haste after me to say that his sister and the children are to leave to-morrow for Whitehall, his brother-in-law's estate, which lies some twelve miles from Guildford, but northeast from Enterprise, the little station, where you leave the railroad, and Miss Yancey is going to call on you and Mrs. Winchester this evening, to invite you to make Whitehall your headquarters until you can establish yourself elsewhere."
"Oh, how kind of them!" said Carolina.
"Then y-you will accept?" demanded Kate, in old-thought surprise.
"Why, what could possibly be better?" asked Carolina, in new-thought simplicity and gratitude.
"T-ten to one on Colonel Yancey!" murmured Kate in her father's ear as they turned away.
"W-was it a d-difficult job, d-daddy?" she asked, tucking her arm into his.
"Kate, child, it was an absolute triumph for Carolina's new religion. I deserve no credit. The man set his jaws and looked as hard as nails, until I mentioned that Carolina had healed his baby. He had been carefully led-probably by Carolina's instructions-to believe that Mrs. Goddard did it-"
"Y-yes, Miss Yancey believes it, too."
"Well, they forgot to coach me, so I told him it was Carolina. My dear, voilà tout!"
"C-Christian Science p-plays ball every time, doesn't it?" observed Kate, thoughtfully.
CHAPTER XII
WHITEHALL
"Well," said Mrs. Winchester, looking out of the car-window as the train approached Enterprise, "if any man had told me that two years from the day we left Bombay I should find myself going back to Guildford to live, I should have said he was a thousand dollars from the truth. What are you laughing at, Carolina?"
"And if any man had told me that I could ever have brought myself to accept an invitation from Miss Sue Yancey to visit them at Whitehall until we could establish ourselves comfortably, when I used to dislike her brother so much, I should have said the same," said Carolina, "but love works many miracles in the human heart."
Mrs. Winchester looked sharply at the young girl, but Carolina's expression was so innocent Cousin Lois decided that she was not referring to Colonel Yancey. Then, with one of her rare caresses, which Mrs. Winchester prized above gold, Carolina laid her hand on Mrs. Winchester's arm and said:
"And, dear Cousin Lois, no mother could have been sweeter and more unselfish about the loss of her money than you have been, or more self-sacrificing to come down here with me."
"Nonsense, my dear!" said Mrs. Winchester, colouring like a girl of eighteen. Her blush was still beautiful and was her only comfort, except her waist-line. "You know that I love to be where you are. In fact, Carolina, if you knew how I suffered, actually suffered, child, last winter in Boston, when I was separated from you, you would believe me when I say that I cannot live without you. I must be with you. You are all I have in the world, – and the money, – what is money good for except to buy things with? Haven't I everything I want?"
Carolina listened with a beating heart.
"Yet, you are even going to have the money back!" she said, with another pressure of Cousin Lois's hand.
"Yes, I really believe I am. That new religion of yours seems to be a sort of magic carpet, to take you anywhere you want to go and to get you everything you want to have."
"It brings perfect harmony into your life," said Carolina.
"Well, harmony is heaven!" said Mrs. Winchester, emphatically.
"Oh, what bliss to be coming home!" breathed Carolina, fervently. "I wonder if any shipwrecked sailor or prodigal son or homesick child ever yearned as cruelly for his father's house as I yearn for my first sight of Guildford!"
Mrs. Winchester turned, a little frightened at the passion in the girl's tone. She felt that Carolina was unconsciously preparing herself for a bitter disappointment.
"How dear those little darkies are!" she cried. "But, oh, did you see what that woman did? She knocked that little boy sprawling! She knocked that child down! Did you ever hear of such cruelty? Do you suppose she could possibly have been his own mother, Cousin Lois?"
"Sit down, Carolina, and don't get so excited. Of course she was his mother. That's the way coloured women do. It saves talking, – which seems to do no good. I've seen old Aunt 'Polyte, in your father's time at Guildford, come creeping around the corner of her cabin to see if her children were obeying her, and, if she found that they were not, I've seen her knock all ten of them down, – some fully six feet away. And such yells!"
"Did grandfather allow it?" demanded Carolina, with blazing eyes.
"I can fairly see him now, sitting his horse Splendour, draw rein and shake with silent laughter, till he had to take his pipe out of his mouth. It was too common a sight to make a fuss about. Besides, they needed it. Of all the mischievous, obstinate, thick-headed little donkeys you ever saw, commend me to a raft of black children, – Aunt 'Polyte's in particular. Coloured women are nearly always inhuman on the surface to their own children."
"Wasn't Aunt 'Polyte my father's black mammy? Wasn't she kind to the white children in her charge?"
"Ah, that was a different matter. Kind? 'Polyte would have let all her own children die to save your father one ache. I remember when her children got the measles, she locked them all in the cabin, and sent her sister to feed them at night, while she stayed in the big house and kept her white children from contagion. Fortunately, none of her own died, but, if they had, it wouldn't have changed her idea of her duty."
"What was there queer about Aunt 'Polyte? I remember that daddy told me once, but I have forgotten."
"She had one blue eye and one biack one, and not one of her children inherited her peculiarity except her youngest child, – a boy, – born when she was what would be called an old woman. I know she thought it was a bad omen to have a child after she was fifty, and, when she saw his blue eye, she said he was marked for bad luck."
"Oh, how dreadful!" cried Carolina. "Cousin Lois, you know enough about Christian Science to know that she made a law for that child which may have ruined him for life."
"Yes, I suppose she did. But, Carolina, dear, don't get your hopes of the South up too high. I am afraid it won't come up to your expectations."
Carolina smiled, sighed, and shook her head.
"I can't modify my anticipations, Cousin Lois. Don't try to help me. If I am to be disillusioned, let it come with an awful bump. Nothing short of being knocked down with a broadside like that little negro boy can do my case any good. I'm hopeless."
"I believe you are. Well, we shall see. We must be nearly there. The last time the train stopped, – was it to shoo a cow off the track or to repair the telegraph wires? – the conductor said we were only five hours late. But that was six hours ago. I wonder what we are stopping at this little shed for? Oh, hurry, Carolina! He is calling Enterprise and beckoning to us."
"No hurry, ma'am," said the conductor. "The train will wait until you all get off in comfort, or I'll shoot the engineer with my own hand!"
Carolina stepped from the train to the platform and looked around. Then she bit her lip until it bled. Cousin Lois was counting the hand-luggage and purposely refrained from looking at her.
There was a platform baking in the torrid heat of a September afternoon. From a shed at one end came the clicking of a telegraph instrument. That, then, must be the station. Six or eight negro boys and men, who had been asleep in the shade of a dusty palmetto, roused up at the arrival of the train and came lazily forward to see what was going on. There were some dogs who did not take even that amount of trouble. A wide street with six inches of dust led straight away from the station platform. There was a blacksmith shop on one side and a row of huts on the other. Farther along, Carolina could see the word "Hotel" in front of a one-story cottage. The town fairly quivered with the heat.
"Was you-all expectin' any one to meet you?" inquired the conductor.
"Why, yes," answered Mrs. Winchester. "Miss Yancey said she would send for us."
"Miss Yancey? Miss Sue or Miss Sallie Yancey? Fat lady with snappin' brown eyes?"
"Yes, that describes her."
"The one that's just been to New York with the colonel's children?"
"Yes."
"Oh, well, that's Miss Sue. She'll send all right, but likely's not you've got to wait awn her. She's so fat she can't move fast. Have you ever heard how the colonel's little girl was kyored? She went to one of these here spiritualists and was kyored in a trance, they tell me."
"Ah, is that what they say?" said Mrs. Winchester, in a tone of deep vexation. She felt insulted to think of so dignified a belief as Christian Science being confounded with such a thing as spiritualism. But she realized the absurdity of entering into a defence of a new religion with the conductor of a waiting train. She had, however, forgotten what Southern railroads are like.
"Yes'm. They say a lady done it. Jest waved her hands over the child, and Gladys hopped up and began to shout and sing and pray!"
"My good man," said Mrs. Winchester, "do start your train up. You are seven hours late as it is!"
"What's your hurry, ma'am? Everybody expects this train to be late. I can't go till my wife's niece comes along. She wants to go on this train, and I reckon I know better than to leave her. She's got a tongue sharper'n Miss Sue Yancey's."
Mrs. Winchester turned her majestic bulk on the conductor, intending to annihilate him with a glance, but he shifted his quid of tobacco to the other cheek, spat neatly at a passing dog, lifted one foot to a resting-place on Carolina's steamer-trunk, and continued, pleasantly:
"Now, that there dust comin' up the road means business for these parts. I'd be willin' to bet a pretty that that is either Moultrie La Grange or Miss Sue Yancey. But whoever it is, they are sho in a hurry."
Carolina stood looking at the cloud of dust also. Most of the passengers on the waiting train, with their heads out of the car-windows, were doing the same. It seemed to be the only energetic and disturbing element in an otherwise peaceful landscape, and only one or two passengers, who were obviously from the North and therefore impatient by inheritance, objected in the least to this enforced period of rest.
"And from here, I'd as soon say it was Moultrie as Miss Sue. They both kick up a heap of dust in one way or another, on'y Moultrie, he don't raise no dust talking. If it is Moultrie, he'll be mighty sore at bein' away when the train come in, on'y I reckon he didn't look for her so soon. We was thirteen hours late yestiddy."
How much longer the train would have waited, no one with safety can say, had not the cloud of dust resolved itself into a two-seated vehicle, in which sat two ladies, both clad in gray linen dusters, which completely concealed their identity. One of the dusters proved to be the conductor's niece, who took the time to be introduced to Mrs. Winchester and Carolina by the other duster, which turned out to be Miss Sue Yancey. When the conductor's niece had fully examined every item of Carolina's costume with a frank gaze of inventory, she stepped into the station to claim her luggage, and then, after bidding everybody good-bye all over again, she got into the train, put her head out of the window, called out messages to be given to each of her family, and, after a few moments more of monotonous bell-ringing by the engineer, in order to give everybody plenty of notice that the train was going to start, it creaked forward and bumped along on its deliberate journey farther south.
Carolina took an agonized notice of all this. If it had been anywhere else in the world, she could have been amused; she would have listened in delight to the garrulous conductor, and would have laughed at the crawling train. But here at Enterprise, – that dear town which was nearest to the old estate of Guildford, – why, it was like being asked to laugh at the drunken antics of a man whom you recognized as your own brother!
She listened to Miss Yancey's apologies for being late with a stiff smile on her lips. She must have answered direct questions, if any were asked, because no breaks in the conversation occurred and no one looked questioningly at her, but she had no recollection of anything except the jolting of the springless carriage and the clouds of dust which rolled in suffocating clouds from beneath the horses' shuffling feet.
They drove about four miles, and then turned in at what was once a gate. It was now two rotting pillars. The road was rough and overgrown on each side with underbrush. The house before which they stopped had been a fine old colonial mansion. Now the stone steps were so broken that Miss Yancey politely warned her guests with a gay:
"And do don't break your neck on those old stones, Mrs. Winchester. You see, we of the old South live in a continuous state of decay. But we don't mind it now. We have gotten used to it. If you will believe me, it didn't even make me jealous to see the prosperity of those Yankees up North. I kept saying to myself all the time, 'But we have got the blood!'"
As they entered the massive hall, cool and dim, the first thing which struck the eye was a large family tree, framed in black walnut, hanging on one side of the wall, while on the other was a highly coloured coat of arms of the Yanceys, also framed and under glass.
Miss Yancey took off her duster and hung it on the hat-rack.
"Now, welcome to Whitehall! Will you come into the parlour and rest awhile, or would you like to go to your rooms and lie down before supper? I want you to feel perfectly at home, and do just as you please."
"I think we will go to our rooms, please," said Mrs. Winchester, with one glance into Carolina's pale, tired face.
"Here, you Jake! Carry those satchels to Mrs. Winchester's room, and, Lily, take these things and go help the ladies. And mind you let me know if they want anything."
A few moments afterward, Lily, the negro maid, came hurrying down-stairs, her eyes rolling.
"Laws, Miss Sue! Dey wants a bath! Dey axed me where wuz de bathroom, en I sez, 'Ev'ry room is a bathroom while y'all is takin' a bath in it.' En Miss Sue, Miss Calline, she busted right out laffin'."
"They want a bath?" cried Miss Sue. "Well, go tell Angeline to heat some water quick, and you fill this pitcher and take it up to them. But mind that you wash it out first, – if you don't, you'll hear from me, – and don't be all day about it. Now, see if you can hurry, Lily."
When the sun went down, the oppressive quality in the heat seemed to disappear, and when Cousin Lois and Carolina came down in their cool, thin dresses, they found themselves in the midst of the most delightful part of a Southern summer day.
Miss Sue was nowhere to be seen, but another lady, as thin as she was fat, came out of the dimness and introduced herself.
"I am Mrs. Elliott Pringle, ladies, though you will nearly always hear me called Miss Sallie Yancey. Sister Sue is out in the garden. Shall we join her? I know she wants you to see her roses."
Carolina's spirits began to rise. She felt ashamed of her hasty disillusionment. Where was her courage that she should be depressed by clouds of dust and the lack of a bathroom?
In the early evening, with the shadows lengthening on the grass and the pitiless sun departed, the ruin everywhere apparent seemed only picturesque, while the warm, sweet odours from the garden were such as no Northern garden yields.
There were narrow paths bordered with dusty dwarf-box, with queer-shaped flower-beds bearing four-o'clocks, touch-me-nots, phlox, azaleas, and sweet-william. Then there were beds upon beds of a flower no Northerner ever sees, – the old-fashioned pink, before gardeners, wiser than their Maker, attempted to graft it. In its heavy, double beauty it always bursts its calyx and falls of its own weight of fragrance, to lie prostrate on the ground, dying of its own heavy sweetness. Against a crumbling wall were tea-roses. In another spot grew a great pink cabbage rose, as flat as a plate when in full bloom, with its inner leaves still so tightly crinkled that its golden heart was never revealed except by a child's curious investigating fingers. And curiously twisting in and out of the branches of this rose-tree was a honeysuckle vine. Over one end of the porch climbed a purple clematis. Over the other a Cherokee rose. But the great glory of the garden was over against the southern wall, where roses of every sort bloomed in riotous profusion. Evidently they bloomed of their own sweet will, and with little care, for the garden was almost as neglected as the rest of the place.