satin smooth and silver gray, and beyond, clean shaven William’s Island loomed
out of the mist, guarding the town like a sturdy bulldog. Its lighthouse beacon
flared through the mist like a baleful star, and was answered by another in the far
horizon.
“Did you ever see such a strong-looking place?” asked Philippa. “I don’t want
William’s Island especially, but I’m sure I couldn’t get it if I did. Look at that
sentry on the summit of the fort, right beside the flag. Doesn’t he look as if he
had stepped out of a romance?”
“Speaking of romance,” said Priscilla, “we’ve been looking for heather—but,
of course, we couldn’t find any. It’s too late in the season, I suppose.”
“Heather!” exclaimed Anne. “Heather doesn’t grow in America, does it?”
“There are just two patches of it in the whole continent,” said Phil, “one right
here in the park, and one somewhere else in Nova Scotia, I forget where. The
famous Highland Regiment, the Black Watch, camped here one year, and, when
the men shook out the straw of their beds in the spring, some seeds of heather
took root.”
“Oh, how delightful!” said enchanted Anne.
“Let’s go home around by Spofford Avenue,” suggested Gilbert. “We can see
all ‘the handsome houses where the wealthy nobles dwell.’ Spofford Avenue is
the finest residential street in Kingsport. Nobody can build on it unless he’s a
millionaire.”
“Oh, do,” said Phil. “There’s a perfectly killing little place I want to show
you, Anne. IT wasn’t built by a millionaire. It’s the first place after you leave the
park, and must have grown while Spofford Avenue was still a country road. It
DID grow—it wasn’t built! I don’t care for the houses on the Avenue. They’re
too brand new and plateglassy. But this little spot is a dream—and its name—but
wait till you see it.”
They saw it as they walked up the pine-fringed hill from the park. Just on the
crest, where Spofford Avenue petered out into a plain road, was a little white
frame house with groups of pines on either side of it, stretching their arms
protectingly over its low roof. It was covered with red and gold vines, through
which its green-shuttered windows peeped. Before it was a tiny garden,
surrounded by a low stone wall. October though it was, the garden was still very
sweet with dear, old-fashioned, unworldly flowers and shrubs—sweet may,
southern-wood, lemon verbena, alyssum, petunias, marigolds and
chrysanthemums. A tiny brick wall, in herring-bone pattern, led from the gate to
the front porch. The whole place might have been transplanted from some