Mr. Henderson came out with a satchel and climbed in. He looked stern and uninviting, Alexina thought, but the note of Molly's random remarkings promptly brightened. Willy flicked the whip above the big grey span and off they trotted across town, westward. The morning was keen enough that the sun's warmth was pleasant and quickened the blood. Aden was left behind. Here and there on the outskirts frame houses, crudely and hideously cheap, were building. Land everywhere was being cleared, the felled trees lying about, the whirl of a portable sawmill telling their destiny, while burning stumps filled the air with creosote pungency. Then the despoilments of progress were left behind and the untouched pine woods closed about them, and trees rose tall, straight, twigless, to where a never-ceasing murmur soughed, and the light came sifting, speckled, and flickering through the gloom, upon the sandy ground and scrub palmetto beneath. Alexina breathed deep. It was quiet, and peaceful and solemn. "Isn't it?" said William sociably. She looked up; she hadn't spoken. The trees thinned, grew sparse, and the road came out into the open. A mile farther on they entered a belt of hummock land, a wild growth of live-oak, cypress, magnolias, thicketed, intertwisted, rank. Grey moss trailed and swept their faces as they passed under, vines clambered and swung and festooned, gophers crawled out of the path, and a gleaming snake slid across the road and into the palmetto undergrowth. He was looking at her as they came out, she flushed and ecstatic. "But wait," said he, "until I show it to you after a while in bloom." Just beyond the hummock he drew rein at a clearing before an unpainted frame house, even cheaper and more hideous than the most. Mr. Henderson got out, King handing the satchel after him. "It's a death-bed," he said under his breath to the two, as the minister went toward the house; "that's the pitiful part of it down here, people taking all they've got to get here, only to die." "Don't--don't tell about it," said Molly sharply. William Leroy touched the mules and they went on. A little later Alexina felt Molly's hand upon her. "Come back with me, Malise," she begged. Her face looked drawn and grey. "But we're there," explained King, and a minute after turned in at an old iron gate, flanked by two ancient live-oaks. An osage hedge, cut back upon its woody stock, stretched about the place either side from the gate. Within, the driveway made a sweep off towards buildings in the rear, while a shell path led up to the house, which was of frame, wide, with porches across the front, up-stairs and down. Bermuda grass covered the sandy surface of the yard, which was large and sloped back towards the lake, visible through the grove. Here and there a banana plant reared its ragged luxuriance and a stunted palm or two struggled upward; there was on old rustic seat beneath a gnarled wild orange tree.