Fred took out his watch, and finding that he was not hurried for time yielded to his sister’s entreaties and rang the bell. Presently the door was opened by a stern-looking man in overalls, evidently a gardener.
He frowned unpleasantly when the girls asked to see Mrs. Van Vorst, but when Grace produced her note and said she had been sent by Dr. Morrow’s wife, he reluctantly held the gate open for them to enter.
Nathalie gazed eagerly down the garden path, with its old-time hedge and tall pines that swayed gently to the rhythm of the May breezes, leading to the handsome modern structure at the end. It was colonial in design, with low French windows and overhanging Juliet balconies here and there. A long veranda ran across the front, with high white pillars, and a porte-cochère.
“This is the old Dutch shack,” remarked Fred irreverently a moment or so later, as they stood in front of the weather-beaten landmark that clung like some ugly parasite to the stately mansion which towered above it.
Nathalie’s eyes were awe-struck as her glance traveled over the sloping roof with its red chimneys, where quaint dormer windows stood forth like thrust out heads from its gray shingles. The long, low porch, only a foot from the ground, was almost lost to view behind the vines of honeysuckle and rambling roses screening the trellis. Bushes of hollyhocks, white peonies and many old-time posies grew in a riotous hedge around it.
Fred showed her the hatchet-scarred door-lintel, a memento of savage ferocity, and told of the little Dutch maiden who, from a small window above the door, fired on a group of redskins as they hammered against it, killing two. In the rear of the homestead he pointed out a grass-grown mound, where it was claimed an outhouse once stood, leading to an underground passageway, where the settlers at times took refuge when hearing the fiendish war-whoop.
As the girls nervously ascended the low steps leading to the broad-floored veranda of the gray house, Fred turned back towards the gate, promising to wait outside for them.
As the great door swung open in answer to their ring, and the butler’s impassive face stared stonily at them, the girls were tempted to turn tail and follow Fred as he went whistling down the path. But Grace conquered the inclination, and with assumed boldness asked for Mrs. Van Vorst.
For an instant Nathalie thought the man was going to shut the door in their faces, but when Grace held out the note for confirmation of her words his impassivity relaxed somewhat, and with stiff formality he asked them to walk in. With hushed breath they gazed curiously about the hall, while a stag’s head above a quaintly-carved table eyed them glassily.
The rusty swords, the flint-locks, and many other curios that decorated the casement, beneath faded canvasses of ancient dames and sires, possessed a weird charm for the girl. She was particularly beguiled by the wide oaken staircase with its daintily carved balustrade that rose spiral-like to the floor above, and to her imaginative ear there came the swish of a brocade gown as some haughty fair one, kin to the canvassed beauties on the tapestried walls, came with tap of dainty heel down the broad stairway.