Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/168

 forget about the thumbs," remarked Georgie, consolingly. "Mamma, aren't you coming to see us?"

"Yes, I think I shall; and I will bring Cannie with me. She hasn't seen the Casino yet."

Candace had become familiar with the street side of the pretty Casino building, and admired greatly its long façade, with the quaintly shingled curves and balconies, and the low gables, ornamented with disks and half suns in dull gilding,—all looking, Mrs. Gray said, as old as if it had stood there for a couple of centuries, instead of for three or four years only. But the street side, picturesque as it is, had by no means prepared her for what she saw as she followed her cousin through the entrance hall and into the quadrangle beyond.

What did she see? An open space of greenest turf, broken only by two long curving beds of foliage plants and a stone basin from which a fountain threw up a cool jet to refresh the air. On either hand, and on the side from which they had entered, was