"There isn't," said he, disclosing for the first time in his life, and quite unconsciously, his passion for the place where he had been born. "There's nowhere else but Charleston worth anything--I don't know what it is about, but it's so." They were passing a wall across whose top peeped an elbow of ivy geranium. It was as though the unseen garden beyond, tired of constraint and drowsily stretching, had disclosed this hint of a geranium coloured arm. Pinckney paused at a wrought iron gate and opened it. "This is Vernons," said he. CHAPTER II A grosbeak was singing in the magnolia tree by the gate and the warmth of the morning sun was filling the garden with a heart-snatching perfume of jessamine. Jessamine and the faint bitterness of sun warmed foliage. It was a garden sure to be haunted by birds; not large and, though well kept, not trim, and sing the birds as loud as they might, they never could break the charm of silence cast by Time on this magic spot. In the centre of the lawn stood a dial, inscribed with the old dial motto: The Hours Pass and are Numbered. Phyl paused for a moment just as she had paused in the street, and Pinckney looking at her noticed again that uptilt of the head, and that far away look as of a person who is trying to remember or straining to hear. Then a voice from the house came across the broad veranda leading from the garden to the lower rooms. A female voice that seemed laughing and scolding at the same time. "Dinah! Dinah! bless the girl, will she never learn sense-- Dinah! Ah, there you are. How often have I told you to put General Grant in the sun first thing in the morning?-- You've been dusting! I'll dust you. Here, get away." Out on the veranda, parrot cage in hand, came a most surprising lady. Antique yet youthful, dressed as ladies were wont to dress of a morning in long forgotten years, bright eyed, and wrathfully agitated. "Aunt," cried Pinckney. "Here we are." The sun was in Miss Pinckney's eyes; she put the cage down, shaded her eyes and stared full at Phyl. "God bless me!" said Miss Pinckney. "This is Phyl," said he, as they came up to the verandah steps. Miss Pinckney, seeming not to hear him in the least, took the girl by both hands, and holding her so as if for inspection stared at her. Then she turned on Pinckney with a snap. "Why didn't you tell me--she's--why, she's a Mascarene. Well, of all the astonishing things in the world-- Child--child, where did you get that face?" Before Phyl could answer this recondite question, she found herself enveloped in frills and a vague perfume of stephanotis. Maria Pinckney had taken her literally to her heart, and was kissing her as people kiss small children, kissing her and half crying at the same time, whilst Pinckney stood by wondering.