latter bounded by a graceful wooden balustrade, with pedestals for
vases, on either side of the two stone steps leading down from the
terrace to the carriage drive. The central halls, in both stories,
divided the space equally into four rooms on each side, and along
the wide front, ran a lofty piazza supporting the roof, with white
smooth round pillars; while the upper broad square windows, cedar-
framed, and deeply embrasured, looked down on the floor of the
piazza, where so many generations of Darringtons had trundled hoops
in childhood--and promenaded as lovers in the silvery moonlight,
listening to the ring doves cooing above them, from the columbary of
the stucco capitals. This spacious colonnade extended around the
northern and eastern side of the house, but the western end had
formerly been enclosed as a conservatory--which having been
abolished, was finally succeeded by a comparatively modern iron
veranda, with steps leading down to the terrace. In front of the
building, between the elm avenue and the flower-bordered terrace,
stood a row of very old poplar trees, tall as their forefathers in
Lombardy, and to an iron staple driven into one of these, a handsome
black horse was now fastened.

Standing with one foot on the terrace step, close to the marble
vases where heliotropes swung their dainty lilac chalices against
her shoulder, and the scarlet geraniums stared unabashed, Beryl's
gaze wandered from the lovely park and ancient trees, to the
unbroken facade of the gray old house; and as, in painful contrast
she recalled the bare bleak garret room, where a beloved invalid
held want and death at bay, a sudden mist clouded her vision, and
almost audibly she murmured: "My poor mother! Now, I can realize the
bitterness of your suffering; now I understand the intensity of your
yearning to come back; the terrible home-sickness, which only Heaven