AT THE GATEWAY In a certain old Southern city there stands, as there has stood for many generations, and will no doubt endure for many more, a lofty mansion whose architecture dates back to a distant day.

Wide and spacious, with lofty stories, with deep wings and many narrow windows, it rests far back among the ancient oaks, a stately memorial of a day when gentlemen demanded privacy and could afford it.

From the iron pillars of the great gateway the white front of the house may barely be seen through avenues made by the trunks of the primeval grove.

The tall white columns, reaching from gallery floor to roof without pause for the second lofty floor, give dignity to this old-time abode, which comports well with the untrimmed patriarchal oaks.

Under these trees there lies, even today, a deep blue-grass turf which never, from the time of Boone till now, has known the touch of ploughshare or the tool of any cultivation.
It was the boast of this old family that it could afford to own a portion of the earth and own it as it came from the hand of Nature.
Uncaught by the whirl of things, undisturbed essentially even by the tide of the civil war, this branch of an old Southern family had lived on in station unaffected, though with fortune perhaps impaired as had been those of many Southern families, including all the Beauchamp line.
To this strong haven of refuge had come Mary Ellen Beauchamp from the far-off Western plains, after the death of her other relatives in that venture so ill-starred.