The old-fashioned Capitol building stood on
nearly the highest swell. Just below it, on the
hither side, the old inn, the City Hotel, with
all its little gabled roof-windows and dilapidated
verandas, slept among its trees. Farther north-
ward the low lines of business housed, the for-
saken cotton yards and warehouses, and then
the little market-house and sunny square ; still
beyond, and a little higher, the broad-winged,
roomy, old residences looking out from among
the grandest and beautifulest trees in the world.
They could see the color of the foliage change
with many a scintillation, as the waves of the
breeze swept over those undulated groves.
"And see! Look!" she continued. " Wa-
kulla is at full blast!"
He followed her hand with his eyes, and saw,
far in the south-east, a slim, mysterious, dark
column of smoke spouting straight up to the
sky. It seemed actually to strike the empy-
rean, and rebound from its surface in dense
fleeces and flakes.
"It is a great mystery, --- that lonely smoke-
pot in the vast Wakulla swamp," said Cauthorne
musingly: "why doesn't some one undertake
to reach it ?"