reflected in a single visible pane. Seen close at hand, the house
presented a cheerful spaciousness of front--a surety of light and
air--produced in part by the clean white, Doric columns of the
portico and in part by the ample slope of shaven lawn studded
with reds of brightly blooming flowers. From the smoking chimneys
presiding over the ancient roof to the hospitable steps leading
from the box-bordered walk below, the outward form of the
dwelling spoke to the imaginative mind of that inner spirit which
had moulded it into a lasting expression of a racial sentiment,
as if the Virginia creeper covering the old brick walls had
wreathed them in memories as tenacious as itself.

For more than two hundred years Blake Hall had stood as the one
great house in the county--a manifestation in brick and mortar of
the hereditary greatness of the Blakes. To Carraway, impersonal
as his interest was, the acknowledgment brought a sudden vague
resentment, and for an instant he bit his lip and hung
irresolute, as if more than half-inclined to retrace his steps. A
slight thing decided him--the gaiety of a boy's laugh that
floated from one of the lower rooms and swinging his stick
briskly to add weight to his determination, he ascended the broad
steps and lifted the old brass knocker. A moment later the door
was opened by a large mulatto woman, in a soiled apron, who took
his small hand-bag from him and, when he asked for Mr. Fletcher,
led him across the great hall into the unused drawing-room.

The shutters were closed, and as she flung them back on their
rusty hinges the pale June twilight entered with the breath of
mycrophylla roses. In the scented dusk Carraway stared about the
desolate, crudely furnished room, which gave back to his troubled