Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/259

Rh come from, and wondered if even there they would take her in. The woman had come to a doorway now, and stood there, eying her, it seemed to Viola, with suspicious disfavor; and even as she looked, the dogs, grown brave again, made a spirited rally round the corner, and came yapping about her heels. She turned and, selecting the first path that she saw, walked down over the forward face of the hill.

The fall of the land was so abrupt here that the few householders had had to build steps from the street below to their gates. Some had even gone to the extravagance of a handrail. Viola, making a chary descent, was attracted to glance about her by a sweet, pungent fragrance, and looking to locate its source, found herself at the gate of a house, low, long, and narrow, with a garden on the outward side, terraced to keep the soil from sliding bodily down into the back yard of the house below. From this garden rose the scent that had attracted her. It was the soft, illusive perfume of mignonette, of which the little inclosure, sheltered from the winds by a lattice-work fence, held a goodly store.

The love of flowers was strong in Viola, and pressing her breast against the top of the fence, she stood peering in at the garden with its roughly bordered terraces and pebbled paths.