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sun. At last they came to the gates of Ardeith, which stood open at the end of the avenue that ran between the oaks to the house. Budge stopped the wagon, and Corrie May looked down the avenue.
    Even seen dimly through the drapes of moss that hung from the trees, the home of the Larnes was glorious. A lofty wrought-iron fence divided the estate from the plantation fields, and within the enclosure lay a lawn like green velvet, studded with flower-beds and shaded with oaks that looked a century old. Beyond the oaks was the house, white and shining like a king’s palace, surrounded by columns that rose to the roof. Corrie May had heard tales of its splendor—doorknobs and candlesticks of silver, a spiral staircase of almost legendary magnificence, curtains of brocade and satin, mahogany beds so vast that a whole family could have slept in one of them. She clambered out of the wagon before the manor gates. “Do I go in here?” she asked Budge.
    “I don’t expect they’d like it if you came in by the avenue,” Budge answered dubiously. “Look. You see that road around the fenced-in part? It goes through the cotton around to the back gate.”
    “Oh,” said Corrie May. “Well, you wait for me. I’ll be back soon’s I can see Mr. Larne.”
    “Want me to come in with you?”
    “No, never mind. I’ll tend to it.”
    She went by the road he had indicated. The truth was she wanted to go in without Budge because he would talk, and she wanted to be quiet and look at the beautiful house. It was hard to believe all she had heard about it, but she wanted to see, and this was probably the only chance she’d ever have.
    Even around in the back the house was beautiful with those tall white columns going up to the roof. Corrie May went through the back gateway. On the galleries of the quarters built behind the manor for the house-servants, several Negroes were passing the time of day. How nicely the girls were dressed, in blue calico with fluted aprons and neat shoes. Corrie May glanced down at her own faded dress. It had been clean when she left home, but it was soiled now with the summer dust, and her feet were dusty too, and hard with going barefooted all summer.
    The odor of roasting meat came enticingly from the kitchen-house. How grand to have things like that every night for supper. Corrie May began to be afraid one of these Negroes would call and ask her what business she had amid their magnificence. She felt in her pocket for the letter the clerk had written, proving she had a right to be here, and went down the path and climbed the steps to the back gallery of the big house. A Negro man sat on the gallery turning the handle of an ice-cream churn. Ice-cream for supper too. Imagine. And ice twenty-five cents a pound.
    Corrie May paused hesitantly. “Is Mr. Larne home?” she asked.
    The man at the ice-cream churn glanced up at her. “What you say?”
    “Mr. Larne,” said Corrie May. “I’ve got some business with him.”
    “He come home awhile back. You knock on de do’.”
    She advanced to the back door and knocked. The door was open, but the hall was dim after the sun outside. How enormous it was. You could drive a mule-team right through it and have room on both sides. Far down near the front door was a white structure. That must be the staircase. The front door was open too, and she could see the lovely columns of the front and the oaks beyond.
    Her knock was answered by a mulatto girl in a crisp blue dress and a plaid tignon tied into a pert bow over her forehead. Her collar was of stiffened muslin ironed into a frill, and there were gold rings in her ears. Corrie May was scared of anybody in such finery, but she remembered she was white and this girl was just a nigger after all, so she took the note out of her pocket and asked that it be taken to Mr. Larne.
    “Very well,” said the girl. “You wait here.”
    As she disappeared beyond the staircase Corrie May slipped inside. The knob on the door—Lord