Then Everett took off his hat and bowed low, smiling down upon her.
"I'm so—so glad," she sighed, as if the burden of the world had fallen from her shoulders. Then she closed the book with a snap. "I've been waiting here hours to see what you looked like."
Everett laughed outright.
"If I had known you were waiting I should have come sooner. I did not know Mrs. Brandon knew that I had arrived."
"Oh yes—Mr. Jervais told her."
"Then I can see her now?"
She met his look for a second—then glanced down at her book.
"She's riding over the place now, but she told me to tell you to wait for her. You can tie your horse there," indicating a ring imbedded in the gate post, "then we can go to the house."
Sargent followed her through the gate and along the driveway which extended under the magnolia trees. The gloom of the grove was intense, the black green leaves shutting out the sky entirely and making the ground beneath dank, where a pale green moss grew in lieu of a lawn. Through the vista of trees, glowing bright against the eternal twilight of the grove, the house came into their vision, gleaming like some palace in an enchanted wood.
Sargent stopped when they had gone a little further, and looked at the house. The little girl stopped, too, close beside him, and watched his expression intently. From their position only the front of the house was visible, a stretch of plain, cemented columns that rose from a pavement of deep red flags, level with the ground, to the red tiled roof, two stories high. Back of the columns, the lower rooms extended out from the upper floor, in this way forming a balcony to the entire second floor, which was enclosed in an iron balustrade. From this balcony two flights of stone steps, semi-circular in form, and iron-railed, led down to the pavement below, and in the opening formed by these steps was the wide front door. It was an odd conception of architecture and gave the house a strange, foreign aspect, accentuated by the more familiar appearance of the second floor, with its wide windows and dark green shutters.