ruins about her.

The girl moaned in her fitful sleep and Miss Smith soothed her. Poor
child! here too was work--a strange strong soul cruelly stricken in her
youth. Could she be brought back to a useful life? How she needed such a
strong, clear-eyed helper in this crisis of her work! Would Zora make
one or would this blow send her to perdition? Not if Sarah Smith could
save her, she resolved, and stared out the window where the pale red
dawn was sending its first rays on the white-pillared mansion of the
Cresswells.

Mrs. Grey saw the light on the columns, too, as she lay lazily in her
soft white bed. There was a certain delicious languor in the late
lingering fall of Alabama that suited her perfectly. Then, too, she
liked the house and its appointments; there was not, to be sure, all the
luxury that she was used to in her New York mansion, but there was a
certain finish about it, an elegance and staid old-fashioned hospitality
that appealed to her tremendously. Mrs. Grey's heart warmed to the sight
of Helen in her moments of spasmodic caring for the sick and afflicted
on the estate. No better guardian of her philanthropies could be found
than these same Cresswells. She must, of course, go over and see dear
Sarah Smith; but really there was not much to say or to look at.

The prospects seemed most alluring. Later, Mr. Easterly talked a while
on routine business, saying, as he turned away:

"I am more and more impressed, Mrs. Grey, with your wisdom in placing
large investments in the South. With peaceful social conditions the
returns will be large."