But all this was nothing compared to that magnificent elm-tree, which overhung a wing of the building with its tent-like branches, through which the wind was eternally whispering, and the sunshine was broken into faint flashes before it reached the roof. I had never been so much impressed with the dignity of old times, as when I approached this dwelling. It possessed all the respectability of a family mansion, growing antique in the prosperity which surrounded it, without any attempt at modern improvements.
The very flowers on the premises were old-fashioned; great snow-ball bushes and rows of fruit-trees predominating. In the square garden, with its pointed picket-fence, that ran along the road, I saw clusters of smallage, and thickets of delicate fennel. On each side the broad threshold-stone stood green boxes running over with live-forever and house-leeks, while all around the lower edges of the stone foundation that exquisite velvet moss, which we oftenest find on old houses, was creeping.
I lifted the heavy brass knocker very cautiously, for it was ponderous enough to have reverberated through the house. Even the light blow I gave frightened me. No wonder people felt constrained to muffle knockers like that in the good old times, when sickness came to the family.
A quiet, middle-aged colored woman came to the door. She knew me at once, though it was the first time I had entered the house in years.
"Come in, Miss Hyde," she said, welcoming me with a genial look. "Mrs. Bosworth said, if you called she would come right straight down and see you; so walk in."
She opened the door of a sitting-room on the right of the hall. It was old-fashioned like the exterior of the building. Windows sunk deep into the wall, ponderous chairs, and a capacious, high-backed sofa with crimson cushions, and embroidered footstools standing before it,—all had an air of comfortable ease. The carpet had been very rich in its time, and harmonized well with the rest of the apartment.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER.
I seated myself on the sofa, and waited with some anxiety. Surely, my young friend must be very ill to have abandoned this room for his own! What a comfortable look the place had! How delightfully all the tints were toned down! There stood a queer, old work-table, with any amount of curiously twisted legs, and on it an antique bible, mounted and clasped with silver. Such books are only to be found now in the curiosity shops of the country. Under this table, and somehow lodged among its complication of legs, was the old lady's work-basket, in which I detected a silver-mounted case for knitting-needles, some balls of worsted, and an embroidered needle-book. Ladies are always noticing these little feminine details; they aid us greatly in that quick knowledge of character which men are apt to set down as intuition.