oss the front, steps ascending midway of its length.
Two giant live-oaks flanked the building either end, the wooden
sidewalk cut out to encircle their great roots, and, while handbills
and placards were tacked up and down the rugged, seamy trunks, yet
grey moss drooped from the branches and swept the gallery posts. The
building looked roomy, old-fashioned and reposeful, and Alexina's
spirits rose. She gathered up the wraps, Celeste the satchels--no one
ever looked to Molly to gather up anything--and they went in.
The place seemed deserted and asleep, but just inside the doorway,
where the hall broadened into an office, a man stood looking through a
pile of newspapers. His clothes were black and his vest clerical;
below its edge hung a small gold cross. He turned politely, then said
he would go and find some one.
"Dear me," said Molly, brightening, "he's handsome."
Two days after, they were settled in comfortable rooms overlooking
the hotel grounds. A slope down to a small lake boasted some gnarled
old live-oaks and pines, and one side was set out with a young orange
grove. Across the water one could see several more or less pretentious
new houses built around the shore. The breeze tasted of pine and Molly
had slept a night through without coughing.
"But, Heavens!" she complained, the second afternoon, lolling back in
a wooden arm-chair on the hotel gallery; "isn't there anything to do?"
Alexina and the young man in clerical garb were her audience. He was
the Reverend Harrison Henderson, and had charge of the Episcopal
Church of Aden and lived at the hotel. He seemed a definite and
earnest man. His blond profile was strong. It was a rather immobile
face, perhaps, but it lighted with very evident pleasure as he
answered Mrs. Garnier.
"How would you like to go out to Nancy?" he proposed; "it's quite an
affair for a lake down here, and a young fellow out there rents
sail-boats."
"Charming," agreed Molly, sitting up. "You have ideas; you can't have
been here long."
Mr. Harrison smiled, though it was an acknowledging rather than a
mirthful smile. Life is too earnest for mere laughter, but his zeal to
serve Mrs. Garnier was not to be doubted.
"What do you say, Miss Blair?" he asked, turning to that young person.
"Who?--I?" Alexina had been leaning forward with her elbow on the
gallery railing, her eyes looking off to a line of pines against the
sky. She had been wondering how she should inquire about the
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