the dominion of a tyranny, much more, of a
tyranny which, by dividing the Leightons, had in a measure forced
neutrality upon the gods.

Leighton House, Virginia, found a ready and fitting purchaser in one of
the Leightons of Massachusetts. With the funds thus provided, the
Reverend Orme Leighton moved, lock, stock, and barrel, six thousand
miles to the south. He settled at San Paulo, where he bought for a song
a considerable property on the outskirts of the city. He rented,
besides, a large building in the center of the town, and established
therein the Leighton Academy. Here he labored single handed until his
worth as an instructor became known; then the sudden prosperity of the
venture drove him to engage an ever-increasing staff. The academy
developed rapidly into a recognized local institution. The first
material revenue from the successful school was applied to building a
fitting home on the property bought for a song.

The character of this new Leighton House, which was never known as
Leighton House, but acquired the name of Consolation Cottage by analogy
with the Street of the Consolation near which it stood, was as different
as could well be both from the prevailing local style of architecture
and from the stately colonial type dear to the heart of every Virginian.
The building was long and low, with sloping roofs of flat French tiles.
A broad veranda bordered it on three sides. The symmetry of the whole
was saved from ugliness by a large central gable the overhanging porch
of which cast a deep and friendly shadow over the great front door and
over the wide flights of steps that led down to the curving driveway.

In that luxuriant clime the new house did not long remain bare. A
clambering wistaria, tree-like geraniums, a giant fuchsia and trellised
rose-vines soon embowered the verandas, while, on the south side,
English ivy was gradually coaxed up the bare brick wall. This medley of
leaf and bloom gave to the whole house that air of friendliness and
homeliness that marks the shrine of the Anglo-Saxon's household gods the
world over.

Such was the nest that the Reverend Orme built by the sweat of his brow
to harbor his little family, which, at the beginning of this history,
consisted of himself; Ann Leighton, his wife; and Mammy, black as the
ace of spades without, white within.

CHAPTER II

Ann Sutherland Leighton was one of those rare religionists that
occasionally bloom in a most unaccountable