`` Oh , how delightful ! '' said enchanted Anne . `` Let 's go home around by Spofford Avenue , '' suggested Gilbert . `` We can see all ` the handsome houses where the wealthy nobles dwell . ' Spofford Avenue is the finest residential street in Kingsport . Nobody can build on it unless he 's a millionaire . '' `` Oh , do , '' said Phil . `` There 's a perfectly killing little place I want to show you , Anne . IT was n't built by a millionaire . It 's the first place after you leave the park , and must have grown while Spofford Avenue was still a country road . It DID grow -- it was n't built ! I do n't care for the houses on the Avenue . They 're too brand new and plateglassy . But this little spot is a dream -- and its name -- but wait till you see it . '' They saw it as they walked up the pine-fringed hill from the park . Just on the crest , where Spofford Avenue petered out into a plain road , was a little white frame house with groups of pines on either side of it , stretching their arms protectingly over its low roof . It was covered with red and gold vines , through which its green-shuttered windows peeped . Before it was a tiny garden , surrounded by a low stone wall . October though it was , the garden was still very sweet with dear , old-fashioned , unworldly flowers and shrubs -- sweet may , southern-wood , lemon verbena , alyssum , petunias , marigolds and chrysanthemums . A tiny brick wall , in herring-bone pattern , led from the gate to the front porch .
The whole place might have been transplanted from some remote country village ; yet there was something about it that made its nearest neighbor , the big lawn-encircled palace of a tobacco king , look exceedingly crude and showy and ill-bred XXXXX contrast .
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