“Oh, aren’t they fun?” cried Persis, when she was out of hearing. “Annis, I wonder if you and I will get that way when we grow old? We have made up our minds not to marry, remember.”
Annis laughed. “But I don’t believe Miss Babe has made up her mind not to be married,” she said.
“Isn’t she a dear, coquettish old thing? I wouldn’t have her more sensible for the world.”
“She is delicious. Perhaps if we should come here to live we would be the same. Oh, Persis, wouldn’t Mellicent love to have that family tree they showed us? You are down there on a little, tiny leaf.”
“Yes, and I shall remain on the little, tiny leaf all alone. After all, there is something rather pathetic in the thought that I shall go down to posterity only as a collateral, no matter how famous I may be in my age and generation. Oh, Annis, you and your father must go down on that tree!”
“Yes; Miss Sidney said she would finish out Mary Carter’s twig; and she seemed so pleased to think the opportunity was afforded her. You know she made all those little twigs and leaves herself, and takes great pride in it.”
The travellers were too tired to do more that evening than take a walk about the village, which was fraught with interest to them, as Mrs. Estabrook pointed out the scenes of various events of family history. There stood the old ivy-clad church where the Carters had worshipped for generations; from the door-way many a bridal procession had gone forth. In yonder brick house, surrounded with trees and walled about by a brick barrier ten feet high, lived the famous Judge Herrick, beneath whose roof many notables had been entertained. In such a spot a duel had been fought. At this corner stood an old pump at which Mrs. Estabrook remembered stopping many a time when a little girl. And so it went till, tired out, they returned to their hotel ready for supper and for an early going to bed.
A drive the next day took them to a true specimen of an old Virginia plantation, where they were all greeted cordially by other cousins of several removes, but who, though distant in relationship, were far from being so in manner, and who would have had them stay indefinitely.
This was the old Carter homestead, and here was the garden of Persis’s childish recollection. Every foot of ground was familiar to Mrs. Estabrook, whose father and grandfather were born upon the spot, and tender retrospection almost overcame her as they drove up before the door. From here Mary Carter had gone forth never to return, and in her old room her own grand-daughter slept that night.
Annis and Persis sat up solemnly in the high four-posted bedstead and looked almost with awe around the room, which contained the old pieces of furniture in use a hundred years ago.