She pointed far ahead. Around a rocky headland the view of a pleasant cove had just opened. The green and blue-ribbed hills rose behind the cove; the water lay sparkling in it. There was a vividly white church with a heaven-pointing spire right among the big green trees.
A brown ribbon of main thoroughfare wound up from the wharf, but was soon lost under the shade of the great trees that interlaced their branches above it—branches which were now lush with the late spring growth of leaves. Here and there a cottage, or larger dwelling, appeared, most of them originally white like the church, but many shabby from the action of wind and weather.
Over all, the warm sun spread a mantle. In the distance this bright mantle softened the rigid lines of the old-fashioned houses, and of the ledges and buttresses of the hills themselves.
Old Mrs. Scattergood stood up, too, looking through her steel-bowed glasses.
"I declare for't!" she said, "that's Poketown itself! That's the spire of the Union Church you see. We'll git there in an hour."
Janice did not sit down again just then, nor did she reply. She rested both trimly-gloved hands on the rail and gazed upon the scene.
"Why, it's beautiful!" she breathed at last. "And that is Poketown!"
CHAPTER II
POKE-TOWN
Some ancient dwellings have the dignity of "homestead" resting upon them like a benediction; others are aureoled by the name of "manor." The original Day in Poketown had built a shingled, gable-ended cottage upon the side-hill which had now, for numberless years, been called "the old Day house"—nothing more.