H. F. G.
Rochester, N. Y.
September 22nd, 97.
CHAPTER I.
The house faced the college campus and was the only one in the block. This, in Georgetown, implies a lawn of no small dimensions; the place had neither gardener’s house nor porter’s lodge—nothing but that old home half hidden by ancient elms. For many a year it had stood with closed doors in the very heart of that prosperous Kentucky town, presenting a gloomy aspect and exercising for many a singular attraction. Near the deep veranda a great tree, whose boughs were no longer held in check by trimming, had thrust one of its branches through the frontmost window. Dampness had attacked everything. The upper balcony was loosened, the roof warped, and lizards sunned themselves on the wall.
As for the garden, long ago it had lapsed into a chaotic state. The thistle and the pale poppy grew in fragrant tangle with the wild ivy and Virginia creeper, and wilful weeds thrust their way across the gravel walks.
Sadly old residents saw the place approaching the last stages of decay—saw this house, once the pride of the town, in its decrepitude and loneliness the plaything of the elements.
“A noble wreck! It must have a history of some kind,” strangers would remark.
“Ah, that it has, and a sombre one it is!” any man or woman living near would have answered, as they recalled the history of Richard Harding’s home. For the fate of Richard Harding was a sad memory to them. They remembered how he had been the representative of a fine old family and that much of his fortune had been spent in beautifying this place, to make it a fitting home for Catharine Field, his bride.
She too had been of gentle birth and held an important place in their memory as one who brought with her to this rural community the wider experience usual to a young woman educated in Boston, who, after a few seasons of social success in an ultra fashionable set, has crowned her many achievements by a brilliant marriage.