water as soft as open-top cistern water, aerated by a chain
and bucket," father had informed me, and he and Dabney consumed buckets
of it, while Mammy refused anything else for cooking purposes and
insisted on a nightly bath of it for my face. A white clematis in full
bloom clambered over the eaves of the low stone house and a blush rose
nodded at its door, beside which was placed a rough bench made of square
stones and two large slabs, equally moss-covered and worn.

"It is growing to be perfectly wonderful, Nickols," I said, as if I had
seen it for the first time, while my eyes followed the sweep of the
flagstone walk from the well house beneath the old graybeard poplars out
past stretches of velvety lawn, with groups of shrubs and trees casting
deep shadows even to the kitchen garden, whose long rows of vegetables,
bordered with old-fashioned blooming herbs and savories, led the
observer out into the meadows to the Home Farm and beyond to the dim
line of Paradise Ridge. "It is different and distinctive and--and
American," I added.

"After this garden and the school are finished and a few of the
unfortunate restorations taken away from some of the old houses, like
the porch at Mrs. Sproul's and that bathroom addition of Morgan's, I am
going to bring Jeffries down in his private car and it will be difficult
to keep him from offering to buy Goodloets and have it all shipped up
the Hudson. Really, Charlotte, we have seen a vision of the future
materialize here and we ought to stand with hats off."

"Whose vision?" I asked, as I stood and let the truth of his statement
sink in.

"The parson's spiritual vision perhaps filtering through your father's
mentality, which has welded past, present and future. At least, that is
the way I see it with the material eye, which is all I have to view it
with--if we can call the recognition of beauty and completeness
material."

"Now Mikey is nice and clean and we can go to Minister to play, thank
you, Aunt Charlotte," at this point young Charlotte broke in to say,
thus flinging us a line to haul us out of depths that were slightly over
our heads. "Isn't he lovely?" And she gazed upon her new-found comrade
with open admiration and self-congratulation.

And small Mikey was indeed a bonny kiddie attired in the very stylish
trousers and blouse of small James and shining with Dabney's valeting.
His nicely plastered red mop to some extent mitigated the effect of the
bare and scratched