He gave the order, and the car rolled in through the old stone gateway.  The place, though of a noble old type, was far from a pretentious one, and there was no lodge at the gate, as with most of its neighbours.  The house was no larger than the comfortable home of the Gray family, but its closed blinds and empty white-pillared portico gave it a deserted air.  The grounds about it were not indicative of present day, fastidious landscape gardening, but suggested an old-time country gentleman’s estate, sufficiently kept up to prevent wild and alien growth, though needing the supervision of an interested owner to suggest beneficial changes here and there.

“It’s a beautiful old place, isn’t it?” Richard looked to Roberta for confirmation, and saw it in her kindling eyes.

“It has always been our whole family’s ideal of a home,” she said.  “Ours is so much nearer the centre of things, we haven’t the acres we should like, and whenever we have driven past this place we have looked longingly at it.  Since General and Mrs. Armitage died, and their family became scattered, father has often said that he was watching anxiously to see it come on the market, for there was no place he more coveted the right ownership for, even though he couldn’t think of living here himself.  It seems such a pity when homes like this go to people who don’t appreciate them, and alter and spoil them.”

“So it does,” agreed Richard, and now he had much ado to keep his soaring spirits from betraying the happy secret which he saw his betrothed did not remotely suspect.  He knew she expected to dwell hereafter in the “stone pile” which had been the home of the Kendricks for many years, and she had never by a word or look made him feel that such a prospect tried her spirit.  That it was not to her a wholly happy prospect he had divined, as he might have divined that a wild bird would not be happy in a cage, nor a deer in a close corral.

“Oh, the garden!” breathed Roberta, and clasped her hands with an unconscious gesture of pleasure, as the car swept round the house and past the tall box borders of what was, indeed, such an old-time memorial, tended by faithful and loving hands, as must stir the interest of any admirer of the stately conceptions of an earlier day.  A bowed figure, at work in a great bed of rosy phlox, straightened painfully as the car stopped, and the visitors looked into the seamed, tanned face of the presiding spirit of the place, the old gardener who had served General Armitage all his life.

All four alighted, and walked through the winding paths, talked with old Symonds, and studied the charming spot with growing delight.  Richard, managing to get Roberta to himself for a brief space, eagerly questioned her.

“You find this prettier than any picture in any gallery, don’t you?”

“Oh, it has great charm for me.  I can hardly express the curious content it gives me, to wander about such an old garden.  The fragrance of the box is particularly pleasant to me, and I love the old-fashioned flowers better than any of the wonders the modern gardeners show.  Just look at that mass of larkspur—­did you ever see such a satisfying blue?”