Filling another page with an account of her journey and her impressions
of the place, Mary closed her journal with a sigh of relief that the
long-neglected entry had been made. Then she leaned back on the rustic
bench and gave herself up to the enjoyment of her surroundings. The
fountain splashed softly. A lazy breeze stirred the vines, and fanned
her face. Far below, the shining Potomac took its slow way to the sea
between its lines of drooping willows. The calm and repose of the
stately old place seemed to steal in on her soul not only through eye
and ear and sense of touch, but at every pore.

"It's the strangest thing," she mused. "I must be a sort of chameleon,
the way I change with my surroundings. It doesn't seem possible that
only last week I was scrambling around with my head tied up in a towel,
scrubbing and cleaning and dragging furniture around at a break-neck
speed. I could almost believe I've never done anything all my life but
trail around this garden at my elegant leisure like some fine
lady-in-waiting."

There was time for a stroll down to the river before the falling
twilight recalled her to the house. As she went down the flight of
marble steps it was with the self-conscious feeling that she was a girl
in a play, and this was one of the scenes in Act I. She had seen a
setting like this on a stage one time, when a beautiful lady trailed
down the steps of a Venetian palace to the gondola waiting in the lagoon
below. To be sure Mary's dress did not trail, and she was not tall and
willowy outwardly, but it made no difference as long as she could _feel_
that she was. For a long time she walked slowly back and forth along the
river path, pausing now and then to look up at the great castle-like
building above her. She had never seen one before so suggestive of