The home of the Callenders was an old Creole colonial plantation-house, large, square, strong, of two stories over a stoutly¹ piered basement, and surrounded by two broad verandas², one at each story, beneath a great hip³ roof gracefully⁴ upheld on Doric columns. It bore that air of uncostly refinement⁵ which is one of the most pleasing outward features of the aloof⁶ civilization to which it, though not the Callenders, belonged.

Inside, its aspect was exceptional. There the inornate beauty of its finish, the quiet abundance of its delicate woodwork, and the high spaciousness⁷ and continuity of its rooms for entertainment won admiration⁸ and fame. A worthy⁹ setting, it was called, for the gentle manners with which the Callenders made it alluring¹⁰.

They, of course, had not built it. The late Judge had acquired it from the descendants of a planter of indigo¹¹ and coffee who in the oldest Creole days had here made his home and lived his life as thoroughly¹² in the ancient baronial spirit as if the Mississippi had been the mediaeval Rhine. Only its perfect repair was the Judge's touch, a touch so modestly true as to give it a charm of age and story which the youth and beauty of the Callender ladies only enhanced, enhancing it the more through their lack of a male protector--because of which they were always going to move into town, but never moved.

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