"See, Stephen," she cried, "the sun has come out at last."

For a while they were silent, looking out; the drops glistened on blade
and leaf, and the joyous new green of the earth entered into their
hearts.




CHAPTER XVI

ANNAPOLIS

IT was Virginia's wish, and was therefore sacred. As for Stephen, he
little cared whither they went. And so they found themselves on that
bright afternoon in mid-April under the great trees that arch the unpaved
streets of old Annapolis.

They stopped by direction at a gate, and behind it was a green cluster of
lilac bushes, which lined the walk to the big plum-colored house which
Lionel Carvel had built. Virginia remembered that down this walk on a
certain day in June, a hundred years agone, Richard Carvel had led
Dorothy Manners.

They climbed the steps, tottering now with age and disuse, and Virginia
playfully raised the big brass knocker, brown now, that Scipio had been
wont to polish until it shone. Stephen took from his pocket the clumsy
key that General Carvel had given him, and turned it in the rusty lock.
The door swung open, and Virginia stood in the hall of her ancestors.