Beyond it was a glorious sweep of sunset water . The peninsula itself seemed barren and sandy , covered for the most part with scrub firs and spruces , through which the narrow road wound on to what was the astonishing ; feature in the landscape -- a grey and weather-beaten house built almost at the extremity of the point and shadowed from the western light by a thick plantation of tall pines behind it . It was the house which puzzled Alan . He had never known there was any house near the lake shore -- had never heard mention made of any ; yet here was one , and one which was evidently occupied , for a slender spiral of smoke was curling upward from it on the chilly spring air . It could not be a fisherman 's dwelling , for it was large and built after a quaint tasteful design . The longer Alan looked at it the more his wonder grew . The people living here were in the bounds of his congregation . How then was it that he had never seen or heard of them ? He sauntered slowly down the road until he saw that it led directly to the house and ended in the yard . Then he turned off in a narrow path to the shore . He was not far from the house now and he scanned it observantly as he went past . The barrens swept almost up to its door in front but at the side , sheltered from the lake winds by the pines , was a garden where there was a fine show of gay tulips and golden daffodils . No living creature was visible and , in spite of the blossoming geraniums and muslin curtains at the windows and the homely spiral of smoke , the place had a lonely , almost untenanted , look . When Alan reached the shore he found that it was of a much more open and less rocky nature than the part which he had been used to frequent . The beach was of sand and the scrub barrens dwindled down to it almost insensibly . To right and left fir-fringed points ran out into the lake , shaping a little cove with the house in its curve . Alan walked slowly towards the left headland , intending to follow the shore around to the other road . As he passed the point he stopped short in astonishment . The second surprise and mystery of the evening confronted him . A little distance away a girl was standing -- a girl who turned a startled face at his unexpected appearance .
Alan Douglas had thought he knew all the girls XXXXX Rexton , but this lithe , glorious creature was a stranger to him .
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