Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/241

 huge block of solid ivory flashing in splendour from its throne on the hill. The drive wound down a little dale, around a great circle filled with shrubbery and flowers and up to the pillared porte-cochere.

"Oh! what a beautiful home!" Gaston exclaimed with feeling.

"It is beautiful, isn't it?" she said with delight. "I love every brick in its walls, every tree and flower and blade of grass."

"I've always dreamed of a home like that. Those big columns seem to link one to the past and add dignity and meaning to life."

"Then you can understand how I love it, when I was born here and every nook and corner has its love message for me from the past that I have lived, as well as its wider meaning which you see."

"The old South built beautiful homes, didn't they? And that was one of the finest things about the proud old days," he said.

"Yes, and the new South of which you spoke to-day will not forget this heritage of the old, when it comes to itself and shakes off its long suffering and poverty!"

Strange to hear that sort of a speech from a girl who loves society, dances divinely and dresses to kill. He thought of the words of his foster mother with a pang. He hoped she was joking about those things. But he had a strong suspicion from the consciousness of power with which she had tried once or twice to tease him that they were going to prove fatally true.

"Mother tells me you were in Baltimore, in that swell girls' school on North Charles Street when I was a student at the University?"

"Yes, and we gave reception after reception to the Hopkins men and you never once honoured us with your presence."