The rattling taxi turned in between blistered white wooden posts and wheezed its way up a sweeping semicircular drive, bordered with enormous old catalpa trees. Hollingsworth Hall, though somewhat in want of repair, was a stately Southern home of “before-the-war” days. Its mellow red bricks were almost hidden by twining ivy. The rounded portico was supported by graceful white pillars reaching past the second-story windows. Great trees pressed close about it, and a bed of red geraniums blazed on either side of the open door. Ranee's Lovell broke her shy silence impulsively. “Why, it’s a house! I thought it was a school.”
Rosemary had too much sturdy independence to be impressed by mere wealth, rare as had been her contacts with it. But Valerie Porter was so poised, so self-assured, so grown-up, though she could have been no more than a few months older than Rosemary herself. They had met for the first time this morning, and already Ra nee was beginning to wish.