The two mules trotted down the Quincy pike in the bright widely-spread glow of a late morning, the waves of heat rolling up from the macadam and turning about among the cooler undulations that flowed from the tall corn of the fields. Eight miles from the town and the carriage left the Quincy pike and entered a crossroad, and here the mules walked slowly under the roadside trees. The stone wall at the right was rich with moss and shadows. Two miles along this way, and Tom Singleton’s gate was set into the stone wall. Beyond, and the mules trotted evenly up a gravel road under American elms that were widely placed, the driveway leading to the farmhouse. Pines, lindens, locusts, tulip poplars and elms grew about the house in a pleasant confusion. The fox hounds, great mongrel beasts, walked in and out over the portico. From somewhere toward the rear a great jack, the breeding stallion, was braying at the arrivals. “You can take the west room,” Miss Doe said, standing with her hands folded before her body when she welcomed her guests, when she had kissed each little girl as was her duty. “Anthony, he can take the east room. Lucas will carry up the valises.” Upstairs Theodosia showed Annie the high bed in which they were to sleep, and in the east room another bed, as high, for their grandfather. They would lean out the window to look far over the west hills where other farms lay stretched over the rolling earth, white-fenced barnyards and remote houses about which old trees had gathered. The avenue down to the stone wall and the white gate turned lightly with its elm trees, the way they had come. They would look at the photographs of former Bells and Trotters and Montfords on the chamber walls, and would gaze at a chromo print of a ship standing above a great sea, caught suspended upon a wave. Once they explored all the upper rooms, opening all the doors, and finding a staircase to the attic, they went there to peer out at the land of the farms, thinking that they could see a hundred miles away. Annie was six years old. She would look at Theodosia for confirmation of each new wonder, as if she would say, “And is it so? Is it real?” Theodosia saw her aunt’s vague hostility to her grandfather where it was carefully shawled under her function as hostess. The aunt would mount the stairs to see that all had been made neat in the rooms above, the visit an ostentation, reserved until the guests were at hand.