I They walked rapidly up the close avenue--planted far back in the Fifties by Ford Thornton's grandfather--the blaze of light at the end of the long perspective growing wider and wider.

As they emerged they paused for a moment, dazzled by the scene.
The original home of the Thorntons had been of ordinary American architecture and covered with ivy; it might have been transplanted from some old aristocratic village in the East.

Flora Thornton had maintained that only one style of architecture was appropriate in a state settled by the Spaniards, and famous for its missions of Moorish architecture.

Fordy loved the old house, but as he denied his wife nothing he had given her a million, three years before the fire which so sadly diminished fortunes, and told her to build any sort of house she pleased; if she would only promise to live in it and not desert him twice a year for Europe.
The immense structure, standing on a knoll, bore a certain resemblance to the Alhambra, with its heavy square towers; its arched gateways leading into courtyards with fountains or sunken pools, the red brown of the stucco which looked like stone and was not.

To-night it was blazing with lights of every color.
So were the ancient oaks, which were old when the Alhambra was built, the shrubberies, the vast rose garden.