A
strip of blue tissue paper, pasted over the split, preserved its
negotiability.
Enough of the African bandit for the present: I left him happy, lifted
the rope and opened a creaky gate.
The house, as I said, was a shell. A paint brush had not touched it in
twenty years. I could not see why a strong wind should not have bowled
it over like a house of cards until I looked again at the trees that
hugged it close--the trees that saw the battle of Nashville and still
drew their protecting branches around it against storm and enemy and
cold.
Azalea Adair, fifty years old, white-haired, a descendant of the
cavaliers, as thin and frail as the house she lived in, robed in the
cheapest and cleanest dress I ever saw, with an air as simple as a
queen's, received me.
The reception room seemed a mile square, because there was nothing in
it except some rows of books, on unpainted white-pine bookshelves, a
cracked marble-top table, a rag rug, a hairless horsehair sofa and two
or three chairs. Yes, there was a picture on the wall, a colored crayon
drawing of a cluster of pansies. I looked around for the portrait of
Andrew Jackson and the pinecone hanging basket but they were not there.
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