The Seven Darlings by Gouverneur Morris

In a certain part of the Land of Cotton, where they grow nothing but rice, Colonel Melville Meredith stood beside the charred foundations of a house and nursed his chin with his hand. With the exception of a sword which the King of Greece had given him, all those possessions which he had considered of value had gone up in smoke with the house of his ancestors. The family portraits were gone, the silver Lamarie, and Lesage, and all the Domingan satinwood. If Colonel Meredith had been an older man, he must almost have wept. But the grip upon his chin was not of one mourning. It was the grip of consideration. He was wondering what sort of a new house he should build upon the foundations of the old.

He must, of course, build upon the old site. There were other good sites among his thousands of acres, but none which was so well planted. A good architect could copy the Taj Mahal for you. But the Pemaque oak is one hundred and seven feet, or less, in circumference, and the avenue of oaks leading from the turnpike, two miles away, was planted in 1653. There were also divers jungles of rhododendrons, laurel, and azalea in the river garden that it had taken no less than a great-grandmother to plant.