Ode to Little Gidding

"There’s a perfectly killing little place I want to show you, Anne. It wasn’t built by a millionaire. … it must have grown while Spofford Avenue was still a country road. It did grow—it wasn’t built! I don’t care for the houses on the Avenue. They’re too brand-new and plate-glassy. 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, petunians, marigolds and chrysanthemums. A tiny brick walk, 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 by contrast. As Phil said, it was the difference between being born and being made.

…

"It’s the name I want you to notice especially," said Phil. … "Patty’s Place. Isn’t that killing? Especially on this avenue of Pinehursts and Elmwolds and Cedarcrofts? Patty’s Place, if you please! I adore it."

"Have you any idea who Patty is?" asked Priscilla.

"Patty Spofford is the name of the old lady who owns it, I’ve discovered. She lives there with her niece, and they’ve lived there for hundreds of years, more or less—maybe a little less, Anne. Exaggeration is merely a flight of poetic fancy."

…

"I’m going to dream about Patty’s Place tonight," said Anne. "Why, I feel as if I belonged to it. … [I have a presentiment] that Patty’s place and I are going to be better acquainted yet."