As they turned
into the deep front yard Caroline almost wept with comfort and a
pathetic sense of the wayworn wanderer on the edge of home and
rest, so the place breathed of these. Clear and white with the faded
whiteness of old New England white shingles, it drowsed under its
elms; a fire of nasturtiums smoldered along the broken, flagged path
that led to it; phlox and "Bouncing Bets" crowded up among the once
formal bed of larkspur on each side the sagging flagstone steps,
beneath the simple entrance porch. Old-fashioned green paper shades
hung evenly half way down the clean windows; the door stood
hospitably ajar.
"Just wait there, Rose-Marie, till I find out about things," said
Caroline, tapping lightly on the door. The house was perfectly
silent. She tapped again, and it seemed that something heavy moved
across the floor in a farther room, but there was no answer. Pushing
the door open gently, she stepped in and stood surprised, for she
found herself not in the stiff, unused country "parlor" she had
expected, but a neat bedroom. A quaint four-poster with a fluted
valance, a polished mahogany chest of drawers, a stand by the bed
with a Bible worn to a soft gray and a night lamp on it, some faded
photographs tacked to the white walls--this was an odd reception
room.
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