It was a tidy little dock and trim boathouse that received us, and I realized the aptness of the name “Whistling Reeds.”
For the tall reeds that lined some stretches of its shore were even now whistling faintly in the summer breeze. A stronger wind would indeed make them voiceful.
Back of the reeds were trees, and I had a passing thought that never had I seen so many trees on one island. So dense that they seemed like an impenetrable growth, the path cut through them to the house was not at once discernible.
“This way,” Kee said, and struck into a sort of lane between the sentinel poplars and hemlocks.
But a short walk brought us out into a great clearing where was a charming cottage and most pleasant grounds and gardens.
There were terraces, flower beds, tennis court, bowling green and a field showing a huge target, set up for archery practice.
It fascinated me, and I no longer wondered that Miss Remsen loved her island home. The house itself, though called a cottage, was a good-sized affair, of two and a half stories, with verandahs and balconies, and a hospitable atmosphere seemed to pervade the porches, furnished with wicker chairs and chintz cushions.
Yet the place was so still, so uninhabited looking that I shuddered involuntarily. I became conscious of a sinister effect, an undercurrent of something eerie and strange.
I glanced off at the trees and shrubbery. It was easily seen that the Island, of two or three acres, I thought, was bright and cheerful only immediately around the house. Surrounding the clearing for that, the trees closed in, and the result was like an enormous, lofty wall of impenetrable black woods.
I quickly came back to the house, and as we went up the steps, Alma Remsen came out on the porch.