About a mile back from the shore stands a rambling country house embosomed
in a small park a few acres in extent, and immediately surrounding it
masses of the magnificent shrub known as Rose of Sharon, in full bloom, in
which the walls of snowy white, with their windows gleaming in the
sunlight, seem set as in a bed of color. The air is full of perfume. The
scent of flower and tree rises gratefully from the rain-laden earth. The
birds make the air musical with song; and here and there in the
neighboring wood, the pretty brown squirrels spring from branch to branch,
and dash down with their gambols the rain drops in a diamond spray. A
broad veranda covered with luxuriant honeysuckle and clematis stretches
along the eastern front of the house, and the wide bay window, thrown open
just now to the summer wind, seems framed in flowers. As we approach
nearer, the deep, rich notes of an organ strike upon the ear. Some one,
with seeming unconsciousness, is producing a sweet passionate music, which
changes momentarily with the player's passing mood. We pause an instant
and look into the room. Here is a picture which might be called "a dream
of fair women." Seated at the organ in the subdued light is a young woman
of a strange, almost startling beauty. Her graceful figure clad in a
simple black robe, unrelieved by a single ornament, is slight, and almost
girlish, though there is a rounded fullness in its line which betrays that
womanhood has been reached. A small classic head carried with easy grace;
finely chiseled features; full, deep, gray eyes; and crowning all a wealth
of auburn hair, from which peeps, as she turns, a pink, shell-like ear;
these complete a picture which seems to belong to another clime and
another age, and lives hardly but on the canvas of Titian. We are almost
sorry to enter the room and break the spell. Mary Anderson's manner as she
starts up from the organ with a light elastic spring to greet her visitors
is singularly gracious and winning. There is a frank fearlessness in the
beautiful speaking eyes so full of poetry and soul, a mingled tenderness