A track, open to the field on one side, led us past a
clump of deciduous trees, between pastures broken by cedared knolls
of rock, down the centre of the peninsula, to the house. It was
quite an old frame-building, two stories high, with a gambrel roof
and tall chimneys. Two slim Lombardy poplars and a broad-
leaved catalpa shaded the southern side, and a kitchen-garden,
divided in the centre by a double row of untrimmed currant-bushes,
flanked it on the east. For flowers, there were masses of blue
flags and coarse tawny-red lilies, besides a huge trumpet-vine
which swung its pendent arms from one of the gables. In front of
the house a natural lawn of mingled turf and rock sloped steeply
down to the water, which was not more than two hundred yards
distant. To the west was another and broader inlet of the Sound,
out of which our Arcadian promontory rose bluff and bold, crowned
with a thick fringe of pines. It was really a lovely spot which
Shelldrake had chosen--so secluded, while almost surrounded by the
winged and moving life of the Sound, so simple, so pastoral and
home-like.
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