The Penniman house, white, with green blinds, is set back from the maple-and-elm-shaded street, guarded by a white picket fence.

Between the house and gate a green lawn was crossed by a gravelled walk, with borders of phlox; beyond the borders, on either side, were flowering shrubs, and at equal distances from the walk, circular beds of scarlet tulips and yellow daffodils.

Detached from the Penniman house, but still in the same yard, was a smaller, one-storied house, also white, with green blinds, tenanted by Dave Cowan and his twins, who--in Newbern vernacular--mealed with Mrs.Penniman.It had been the Cowan home when Dave married the Penniman cousin who had borne the twins.

There was a path worn in the grass between the two houses.
On the Penniman front porch the judge was throned in a wicker chair.

He was a nobly fronted old gentleman, with imposing head, bald at the top but tastefully hung with pale, fluffy side curls.