here.

"It's a beautiful old place, isn't it?" Richard looked to Roberta for
confirmation, and saw it in her kindling eyes.

"It has always been our whole family's ideal of a home," she said. "Ours
is so much nearer the centre of things, we haven't the acres we should
like, and whenever we have driven past this place we have looked
longingly at it. Since General and Mrs. Armitage died, and their family
became scattered, father has often said that he was watching anxiously
to see it come on the market, for there was no place he more coveted the
right ownership for, even though he couldn't think of living here
himself. It seems such a pity when homes like this go to people who
don't appreciate them, and alter and spoil them."

"So it does," agreed Richard, and now he had much ado to keep his
soaring spirits from betraying the happy secret which he saw his
betrothed did not remotely suspect. He knew she expected to dwell
hereafter in the "stone pile" which had been the home of the Kendricks
for many years, and she had never by a word or look made him feel that
such a prospect tried her spirit. That it was not to her a wholly happy
prospect he had divined, as he might have divined that a wild bird would
not be happy in a cage, nor a deer in a close corral.

"Oh, the garden!" breathed Roberta, and clasped her hands with an
unconscious gesture of pleasure, as the car swept round the house and
past the tall box borders of what was, indeed, such an old-time
memorial, tended by faithful and loving hands, as must stir the interest
of any admirer of the stately conceptions of an earlier day. A bowed
figure, at work in a great bed of rosy phlox, straightened painfully as
the car stopped, and the visitors looked into the seamed, tanned face of
the presiding spirit of the place, the old gardener who had served
General Armitage all his life.

All four alighted, and walked through the winding paths, talked with old
Symonds, and studied the charming spot with growing delight. Richard,
managing to get Roberta to himself for a brief space, eagerly questioned
her.

"You find this prettier than any picture in any gallery, don't you?"

"Oh, it has great charm for me. I can hardly express the curious content
it gives me, to wander about such an old garden. The fragrance of the
box is particularly pleasant to me, and I love the old-fashioned flowers
better than any of the wonders the modern gardeners show. Just look at
that mass of lar