“I’m so glad to hear you say that. Papa laughed at me when I said something of the sort when he wanted to cut these woods. He left them just to please me. They belong to our place. They hide the house till you get right up to the gate, but I love them.” Again he looked into her eyes and was silent. “Now, I come to think of it, you’re the only girl I’ve met to-day who hasn’t mentioned my speech. That’s strange.” “How do you know that I’m not saving up something very pretty to say to you later about it?” “Tell me now.” “No, you’ve spoiled it by your vanity in asking.” She said this looking away carelessly. “Then I ’ll interpret your silence as the highest compliment you can pay me. When words fail we are deeply moved.” “Vanity of vanity, all is vanity saith the preacher!” she exclaimed lifting her pretty hands. They turned through a high arched iron gateway, across which was written in gold letters, “Oakwood.” On a gently rising hill on the banks of the Catawba river rose a splendid old Southern mansion, its big Greek columns gleaming through the green trees like polished ivory. A wide porch ran across the full width of the house behind the big pillars, and smaller columns supported the full sweep of a great balcony above. The house was built of brick with Portland cement finish, and the whole painted in two shades of old ivory, with moss-green roof and dark rich Pompeian red brick foundations. With its green background of magnolia trees it seemed like a huge block of solid ivory flashing in splendour from its throne on the hill. The drive wound down a little dale, around a great circle filled with shrubbery and flowers and up to the pillared porte-cochere. “Oh! what a beautiful home!” Gaston exclaimed with feeling. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” she said with delight. “I love every brick in its walls, every tree and flower and blade of grass.” “I’ve always dreamed of a home like that. Those big columns seem to link one to the past and add dignity and meaning to life.” “Then you can understand how I love it, when I was born here and every nook and corner has its love message for me from the past that I have lived, as well as its wider meaning which you see.” “The old South built beautiful homes, didn’t they? And that was one of the finest things about the proud old days,” he said. “Yes, and the new South of which you spoke to-day will not forget this heritage of the old, when it comes to itself and shakes off its long suffering and poverty!” Strange to hear that sort of a speech from a girl who loves society, dances divinely and dresses to kill. He thought of the words of his foster mother with a pang. He hoped she was joking about those things. But he had a strong suspicion from the consciousness of power with which she had tried once or twice to tease him that they were going to prove fatally true.