"Oh, Travis!" exclaimed Mary Lee, catching her breath with a gasp of
admiration. "Isn't it beautiful and still? It seems as if we might be
on enchanted ground, and that the palace of the Sleeping Beauty. I
never dreamed that anything could be so lovely."
She nodded toward the velvety green terraces, with their marble urns
of flowers, stretching one above another until they reached the
stately white pillars of the old mansion, where two stone lions
guarded the white steps. On the highest terrace a peacock stood
motionless, his resplendent feathers spread to the sun. Here and there
deserted hammocks swung under the trees, with books and magazines
scattered invitingly underneath. Mary Lee turned aside from the path
to look at the title of one in passing.
"'Gray Days and Gold,'" she read aloud. "How can any one leave such a
treasure on the grass? Surely, Travis, they must be all golden days
here. I have never imagined anything so beautiful."
Miss Philura met them in the hall in a white wrapper, waving a huge
palm-leaf fan. "I was up waiting for you," she said, cordially. "Every
one else in the house is asleep. That is all one can do these hot
afternoons."
"I shall soon follow everybody's example," said Travis, when they had
been shown to their rooms and the trunks brought up.
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