When Mr. Beresford first took charge of the Hetherton estate, he wrote to Frederick, asking why he did not sell the Florida lands, which yielded him nothing. But this Frederick would not do. Magnolia Park had been his mother’s home, and a place where, as a boy, he had been very happy; and, as he could afford to keep it, he wrote to that effect to Mr. Beresford, telling him to let it if he could, and if not, to let it alone. So Mr. Beresford let it alone, except when some one wished to rent a few acres of the land, which was the case when Reinette decided to go there. Then he wrote to the man whose plantation adjoined Magnolia Park, telling him that a daughter of the late Mr. Hetherton was about to visit Florida, and asking him to see that a few of the rooms were made comfortable for her. Unfortunately this letter was miscarried or lost, so that Reinette’s arrival was wholly unexpected, and produced the utmost consternation in the whitewashed cabin, where Uncle Sim and Judy were taking their evening meal, and feeding the four dogs hanging around them. Queenie had traveled night and day until she reached the station at Tallahassee, where she took a carriage for Magnolia Park, a distance of two or three miles. The day was drawing to a close, and the sun was just setting when they turned off from the highway into the road, which wound through the fields for a quarter of a mile or more up to the house. “Dat’s ’em; dat’s the place,” said the driver, whose name was Boston, and he pointed to a huge wooden building standing upon a little rise of ground and surrounded by tall magnolias. Once it must have been a little paradise, but now it was stripped of all its glory, and stood there desolate and dreary, with the paint all washed from its walls and the lights broken from the lower windows, while here and there a door was gone, and the shutters hung by one hinge, or swung loosely in the wind. Involuntarily Queenie held out her hand to Axie, who took it in her strong palm, and said, encouragingly: “It may be better inside. Anyway, I can soon fix it up, and the situation is lovely.” Attracted by the sound of wheels, the four dogs now came rushing down the road, barking so furiously that Queenie turned pale with fright, and clung closer to Axie. But when the noisy pack saw Boston, whom they knew, their barking changed into whines of recognition, which brought Uncle Sim and Aunt Judy round the corner of the house, where the latter stopped, and with her hands on her fat hips eyed the strangers curiously, “Somebody gwine to visit Miss Strong, most likely; but why did Boston fetch ’em here?” she thought.