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.

As Willy helped them out, Charlotte appeared and came animatedly down
the path between the borders of crepe myrtle. Alexina ran ahead to
meet her. The girl's hands were quite cold. Mrs. Leroy's white dress,
relic of bygone fashion, fluttered with rose-coloured ribbons, and
suddenly Alexina seemed to see a wide old cottage in a shrub-grown
yard, and on its porch a lady in a gauzy dress with rosy ribbons,
gathering a little