On either side of the street, half hidden by their garden walls, large stately houses of the Georgian era showed themselves. Mansions that had slumbered in the sun for a hundred years, great, solid houses whose yellow-wash seemed the incrustation left by golden and peaceful afternoons, houses of old English solidity yet with the Southern touch of deep 87 verandas and the hint of palm trees in their jealously walled gardens. 87 “Oh, how beautiful!” said Phyl. She stopped, looked about her, and then gazed away down the street. It was as though the old stately street—and surely the Street of Other Days might be its name—had been waiting for her all her life, waiting for her to turn that corner leading from the commonplace station, waiting to greet her like the ghost of some friend of childhood. Surely she knew it! Like the recollection of a dream once dreamed, it lay before her with its walled gardens, its vaguely familiar houses, its sunlight and placidity. Pinckney, proud of his native town and pleased at this appreciation of it, stood by without speaking, watching the girl who seemed to have forgotten his existence for a moment. Her head was raised as if she were inhaling the sea wind lazily blowing from the Battery, and bearing with it stray scents from the gardens by the way. Then she came back to herself, and they walked on. “It’s just as if I knew the place,” said she, “and yet I never remember seeing anything like it before.” “I’ve felt that way sometimes about places,” said Pinckney. “It seemed to me that I knew Paris quite well when I went there, though I’d never been there before. Charleston is pretty English, anyway, and maybe it’s that that makes it seem familiar. But I’m glad you like it. You like it, don’t you?” 88 88 “Like it!” said she. “I should think I did—It’s more than liking—I love it.” He laughed. “Better than Dublin?” It was her turn to laugh. “I never loved Dublin.” She turned her head to glance at a peep of garden showing through a wrought iron gate. “Oh, Dublin!—don’t talk to me about it here. I want to keep on feeling I’m here really and that there’s nowhere else.”
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