But the Yankee had no idea of giving up his rights. His
hands tightened on reins and whip. He meant to see the plantation that
was mortgaged in his name at any cost. But about one thing he was now
certain. Cherokee would never be a winter resort for him.

He walked his horse to the cross-road, to the left, about a thousand
yards or so, until he came in front of a house. He halted and looked at
it long and critically. It was a two-story house, built of yellow pine,
that had not been painted. In spite of this, it did not look neglected.
It had an air of scrupulous neatness and care. Around the house ran a
simple fence, made to keep the chickens and the pigs that swarmed about
him, from the garden and the piazza. A huge rose-bush covered one whole
side of the house, while in the garden and on the veranda red and white
japonicas were in flower. Flanking the walk from the gate to the house,
high azalea bushes were pushing forth their buds for the spring
blooming, and little borders of box protected with wooden boards, and
bunches of holly intersected the little garden. It was more than a
home-like looking place: it was fascinatingly cozy, with its roses and
camellias and azaleas and a single protecting palmetto, and
over-towering live oaks, and majestic pines. It was just the place
Ellesworth had dreamed of possessing. It was luxuriant; it was tropical.
The air, semi-spiced with odors of gum and blooms mounted to his brain
like a narcotic. He sat upon his horse and looked about. His eyes roamed
past the house and caught the contrast of the unkempt fields with the
neatness within the enclosure. He noted the olive fingers of the high
pines beyond the ploughed land.

It was a fair and a sad sight--William Benson was not there to enjoy his
home.

With a sigh of longing and of self-reproach he turned his face toward
the house again. Before him, with one hand on the gate, stood a woman.
She was looking at him. Questions were in her eyes. Ellesworth stared at
her in amazement, and only superlatives crowded into his mind; for she
was the most glorious woman he had ever seen. She was tall, almost to
his own height, and with a proportional figure. Dressed without
ornament, without ruffle, or frill or white at the throat, in plain
black, her face revealed itself on the green background as if it were
upon a canvas by Bastien Lepage. It was a face in which there seemed to
be many nationalities blended: Italian eyes, Spanish coloring o