Holly came softly down the stairs, one small hand laid upon the broad mahogany rail to steady her descent, her little slippered feet twinkling in and out from beneath the hem of her gingham skirt, her lithe young body swaying in unconscious rhythm with the song she was singing under her breath. It was not yet seven o’clock, and no one save the servants was astir. Holly had always been an early riser, and when the weather permitted the hour before breakfast was spent by her in the open air. On warm mornings she kept to the grateful shade of the porch, perching herself on the joggling-board and gently jouncing herself up and down the while she stared thoughtfully out across the garden into the cool green gloom of the grove, an exercise undoubtedly beneficial to the liver but one which would have resulted with most persons in a total disinclination for breakfast. On those terribly cold winter mornings when the water-pail on the back porch showed a film of ice, she slipped down the oleander path and out on to the road for a brisk walk or huddled herself in a sun-warmed corner at the back of the house. But this morning, which held neither the heat of summer nor the tang of frost, when, after unlatching the front door and swinging it creakingly open, she emerged on to the porch, she stood for a moment in the deep shadow of it, gazing happily down upon the pleasant scene before her. [Illustration] Directly in front of her spread the fragrant quadrangle of the garden, the paths, edged with crumbling bricks set cantwise in the dark soil, curving and angling between the beds in formal precision. In the centre, out of a tangle of rose-bushes and box, the garlanded Cupid, tinged to pale gold by the early sunlight, smiled across at her. About him clustered tender blooms of old-fashioned roses, and the path was sprinkled with the fallen petals. Beyond, the long tunnel between the oleanders was still filled with the lingering shadows of dawn. To right and left of the centre bed lay miniature jungles of overgrown shrubs; roses, deutzias, cape jasmines, Japan quinces, sweet shrubs and all the luxuriant hodge-podge of a Southern garden somewhat run to seed, a little down at the heels maybe, but radiantly beautiful in its very disorder. [Illustration]