Milly then explained that Adelaide had already fitted up her cottage for the purpose, and was expecting an invoice of children by the next day. Adelaide invited the party to visit the cottage that afternoon, and the entire club climbed to the top and interior of Mr. Van Silver's coach; Mr. Stacy Fitz-Simmons, the whilom drum-major of the Cadet band, blowing the coach horn for all he was worth.
They found a park overgrown into a forest, in the depth of which stood a pleasant cottage, with broad verandas, which once commanded a beautiful view of the glistening bay, with Newport in the distance.
"I intend to have some of these trees cut away, so as to leave a vista through to the water," Adelaide explained.
They entered the house, and found it renovated from the mold and decay with which ten years had encumbered it, sweet and fresh with new paint, and papering of pretty design. Light and graceful ratan furniture and chintz hangings added to the beauty of the room, simple straw mattings covered the floor. It was as lovely a home as heart could wish.
"I have done all I can afford," Adelaide said, simply, "and if the club would like to use this cottage for their city children it is at their service, but first Milly wants to entertain the younger children of the Home of the Elder Brother here for a couple of weeks."
"And we will each of us take his or her turn for a week," said Mr. Van Silver; and so the "Paradiso Seaside Home" was provided for.
Mrs. Halsey came with the children. From the moment that she left the station she seemed to be in a dream.
"It all looks so familiar!" she exclaimed; "I am sure I have been here before! There is something caressing in the feeling of the damp air, as though it kissed my cheek like an old friend. And the scent of the salt-water! I remember it so well; and shall we hear the surf? Oh, when was it, where was it, that I knew it all?"
When they drove into the grounds she shook her head. "No, it was not this place," she said, with a wistful look in her eyes; "there were no trees." But at the first glimpse of the house a trembling seized her, and she could hardly mount the steps. Within doors a puzzled expression came into her face.
"It is familiar, yet unfamiliar," she said. "I cannot be sure. If I could only see some face that I had known before, then I could tell."