Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/77

 stirring under the pine trees across the slope of the hill."

The high gray wall that edged the lawn by the cottage was, as Elizabeth knew, the boundary of the grounds belonging to the big, ruined house. She had looked often at the gate, with its round archway, but she had never passed through it and into the crooked path beyond. The lock was rusty and difficult to turn, she noted, as though Miss Miranda did not often pass that way herself. She felt a flutter of excitement as they went through the gate, feeling that she was about to explore some of those mysteries that had been puzzling more people than herself alone.

The peonies were out indeed, great white drifts of them in a long row below a broken wall. It was not easy to realize that the heaps of blackened stones, covered with vines and lusty wild shrubs, had ever stood for a real dwelling with dining and living rooms and windows opening on the garden. Just facing them, was a stretch of wall still partly unbroken, showing a few windows and a door, charred and blackened by the cruel fire, but still firm on its hinges. A very old cherry tree with a twisted black trunk spread its branches just above. It gave Betsey a creepy feeling to look at that closed entrance and think what ruin and desolation lay behind it.