r its bank where the gaunt cows waded in to chew the tough
leaves, and the great house at the front among the live-oaks and the
little cabins in the rear among the pines held descendants of old
masters and old slaves and viewed life in much the timeworn way.

You approached Merryvale, of course, from the water; only the ignorant
newcomer drove or motored the weary miles along the sandy road from the
railway station. The true approach from the city was up the wide river
for some three or four hours to the Merryvale landing. Here,
disembarking with a friendly good-by from the captain, you walked down
the long wharf, and, turning to the right, followed a narrow path in the
white sand until you came out upon the great house.

Unchanged since the first Merryvale built it many decades ago, it stands
a beautiful mansion of cool, high-ceilinged rooms and broad hallways.
Across the front, which faces east, are spacious verandas or galleries
that protect the rooms from the summer heat and afford pleasant places
to sun oneself on chill winter days. The kitchen and sheds, screened by
hardy bamboo, are in the rear; but at the front, before the house, as
far as the bank at the river's edge, is a broad open expanse that in the
North would be a lawn, but that here is sand dotted with tufts of grass
and strewn with fallen leaves. For the glory of the open space is the
live-oaks. These immense spreading trees stand well apart with huge
roots that twist along the ground to disappear in the sand, there to
send out other roots whose hungry mouths drink up the hidden moisture.
The leaves are small, a dark rich green; but neither the leaves nor the
great trunks attract your gaze; you are fascinated by the bunches of
white, fibrous moss that hang from each bough. On a still day they are
motionless, but the slightest breeze sends them softly waving, and in a
storm they swing back and forth, the wind tearing through their long,
thin strands, dragging off a bit here and a bit there, but in the end
leaving them still companions of the live-oak. Birds use the moss for
their nests, and probably no child in the Merryvale household has failed
at some time to fashion of the soft fibres a long white beard with which
to make the magic change from youth to venerated age. On either side of
the house, extending in both directions, are orange groves, and back of
the groves comes the second world, the world of the black folk.

As the world of the rulers has