While Beverly Ashby is squabbling good-naturedly with her brother and chum, suppose we take this opportune moment in which to learn something about the trio?

Beverly and her brother, Athol, had elected to enter this world exactly fifteen years and four months prior to the opening of this story. They also chose the thirteenth of May, 1897, to spring their first surprise upon their family by arriving together, and had managed to sustain their reputations for surprising the grownups by never permitting a single year to pass without some new outbreak, though it must be admitted that Beverly could certainly claim the greater distinction of the two in that direction.

“Woodbine,” their home, had been the family seat for many generations. It had seen many a Seldon enter this world and many a one depart from it. It had witnessed the outgoing of many brides from its broad halls, and seen many enter to become its mistress. It was a wonderful old place, beautiful, stately, and so situated upon its wooded upland that it commanded a magnificent view of the broad valley of Sprucy Stream. Over against it lay the foothills of the blue, blue mountains, the Blue Ridge range, and far to the westward the peaks of the Alleghanies peeped above the Massanutton range nearer at hand.

The valley itself was like a rare painting. The silvery stream running through the foreground, the rich woodlands and fertile fields, the marvelous lights and shadows ever holding the one looking upon it entranced. And all this lay before the broad acres of Woodbine, so named because that graceful vine hung in rich festoons from every column, gallery, portico and even the eaves to which it had climbed, a delicate gray-green adornment in early spring, a rich, darker tone in midsummer, and a gorgeous crimson in the autumn.

It was a spacious old mansion and would have been considered a large one even in the north, where, during the past fifty years, palaces have sprung into existence under the misnomer of “cottages.” Happily, it did not tower up into the air as many of the so-called cottages do, but spread itself comfortably over the greensward, the central building being the only one ambitious enough to attain to two stories and a sharply peaked roof, in which were set several dormer windows from which a most entrancing view of the valley and distant mountain ranges could be obtained.

These dormer window chambers were rarely used, and, excepting during the semi-annual house cleaning, rarely visited. That one of these rare visits should have been paid one of them upon this particular day of which we are writing was simply Kismet. But of that a little later. Let us finish our picture of lovely Woodbine.

Across the entire front of the main floor as well as the second story, ran a wide piazza, gallery they call it in that part of the country. The lower gallery gave upon a broad, velvety lawn dotted with elms, beeches, oaks and feathery pines. No path led to this gallery, and when one stepped from it one’s feet sank into the softest green turf. The door which opened upon it fairly spoke hospitality and welcome from its beautiful fan-like arch to its diamond-paned side lights and the hall within was considered one of the more perfect specimens of the architecture of its period to be found in the state, as was the stately circular double stairway leading to the floor above. Half way up, upon a broad landing, a stained glass window, brought long, long ago from England, let the western sunlight filter through its richly tinted panes and lie in patches of exquisite color upon polished stairs and floor.

At the north and south ends of the house were the real entrances from the carefully raked, wide driveway which described almost a complete circle from the great stone gateway half a mile across Woodbine’s lawn. Could this driveway have run straight through the house the circle would have been perfect, but it had to stop at the big south portico, with its graceful columns, and resume its sweep from the north one which gave upon the “office,” the overseer’s cottage, the various buildings devoted to the business “ob de gr’et house,” as the darkies called it, and away further to the stables, carriage house, granaries and other buildings of the estate, with the servants’ cabins behind these. All upon the north side of Woodbine was devoted to the practical, utilitarian needs of the place, all upon its southern to its pleasures and luxuries, for in the buildings circling away from the south end were the spacious kitchens, dairy, smoke house, laundry and other buildings necessary to the domestic economy of the household. None of these buildings touched directly upon the main house, but were connected with it by a roofed-over colonnade upon which the woodbine ran riot, as it did upon all the detached buildings, producing an effect charming beyond description. The colonnades described a semicircle from the north-west and south-west corners of the big house, and led from the kitchen to the big dining room, and from the office to the Admiral’s study. All the buildings were constructed of rich red brick, brought from England generations ago, the pillars being of white marble. The effect against the dark green foliage was picturesque to agreed.

Unlike many of the old southern homes, Woodbine had always been kept in perfect repair, and by some miracle of good fortune, had escaped the ravages of the Civil War. Its present owner, Admiral Athol Seldon, enjoyed a very comfortable income, having been wise enough during the troublous times of the war to invest his fortune where it would be reasonably safe. He would not have been called a wealthy man, as wealth is gauged in the great northern cities, but in this peaceful valley, where needs were simple and diversions sensible, he was regarded as a man of affluence and no little importance.

During the war he had served in the Confederate Navy, and served with all the strength of his convictions. When it ended in a lost cause he returned to Woodbine to learn in what condition the home he so loved had come through the conflict, for it was situated in the very vortex of the disturbance. Finding it but slightly harmed, and having sufficient means to repair it, he resolved to end his days there. He had never married, an early romance having come to a tragic end in the death of his fiancee soon after the outbreak of the war. Consequently, beautiful Woodbine lacked a mistress, to the great distress of the old family servants.

To remedy this he sent for his brother’s widow and her little two-year-old daughter, Mary. Beverly Seldon, two years his brother’s junior, had been killed at the battle of Winchester in 1864, and the little Mary had entered this world exactly five months after her father’s death. Her mother came very near following her father into the great beyond, but survived the shock to live beneath Athol Seldon’s hospitable roof until Mary was eleven years of age, then quietly went to sleep, leaving Mary to her uncle’s care. The child then and there became mistress not only of Woodbine, but of every living thing upon the place, her uncle included, and no only daughter could have been cared for, petted, spoiled or spanked more systematically than the Madcap Mary Seldon.

At twenty-six she married Turner Ashby, the grandson of one of the Admiral’s oldest friends. Two years later a little daughter was born, but died before she was a year old. Then, just when the old Admiral was beginning to grumble because there seemed to be no prospect of a grand-nephew to inherit Woodbine, Mary Ashby presented him with not only an heir but an heiress as well, and the old gentleman came very near a balloon ascension.

The twins were christened Athol Seldon Ashby and Beverly Turner Ashby before they had fully decided that they were really American citizens, and for seven years no happier household could have been found in the state. Then another calamity visited it. Turner Ashby was killed in a railway accident while north on a business trip. It was a frightful blow to the home in which he was adored by every member, from the Admiral straight down to the blackest little piccaninny upon the estate, and to make it, if possible, more tragic, all that ever came back to Woodbine was the seal ring he had worn, picked up in the charred ruins of the parlor coach. More than eight years had passed since that tragedy, and those years had changed Mary Ashby from a light-hearted, happy young wife and joyous mother to a quiet, dignified woman. Never again did her children find in her the care-free, romping play-fellow they had always known, though she never ceased to be the gentle, tender mother.

And how they missed it. They were too young to fully appreciate their loss, though they grieved deeply for the tall, handsome, golden-haired, blue-eyed father who had been their jolly comrade, riding, romping with them, rowing, playing all manner of games, and always ready to relate some thrilling tale, and who, after eleven years of married life, had remained as much their mother’s lover as upon the day he married her. Indeed, all the countryside mourned for Turner Ashby, for such a personality could not be snatched from its environment without leaving a terrible blank for many years.

Athol was like him in character, but not the least in personal appearance, for both children were Seldon from the crowns of their dark heads to the tips of their small feet. Their chum, and inseparable companion, Archie Carey, might more readily have been taken for Turner Ashby’s son: he was so tall, fair-haired and blue-eyed. Two years their senior and living upon the adjacent estate of “Uplands,” he had grown up in an uninterrupted companionship with Athol and Beverly, and was regarded by them very much as an elder brother so far as camaraderie went, though by no means accorded an older brother’s privileges by Miss Beverly. Indeed, she was more often the leading spirit in the fun, frolics or scrapes into which they were constantly plunging, as for example the one alluded to in the opening chapter. But that must have a chapter all to itself.