Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/81

Rh fore. It had the appearance of having been deserted for a century.

A few turns down narrower streets brought the wayfarer to the Reeds' home. He had only seen it once before by daylight, and now eyed it with curiosity. Though age and poverty showed in its peeling stucco walls, in the untended vines that hung about the bay-window, in the rotting woodwork of the old gate, it still had the air of a place that is lived in and cared for. Inside the gate the pathway of black-and-white marble was clean and bright. Round the root of the dracæna there was a flower-bed planted with mignonette. On the other side of the flagged walk fuchsias and heliotrope were trained against the high fence which separated the house from its next-door neighbor.

In answer to his ring Viola opened the door. She was dressed in a blue-and-white gingham dress, the sleeves of which were rolled up to the elbows, and showed arms slightly rounded and white as milk. She wore an apron and had a pair of scissors in her hand. When she saw who it was the color of joy ran in a beautiful flush over her face.

"You never came at this time before," she said in the hall, hastily pulling down her sleeves. "I never thought for a moment it was you, or I should n't have come to the door with my sleeves this way."