“They have heard of our new humiliation, although we have never written of it! Yes, they have all heard of it, though no one alludes to it,” was the unuttered thought of mother and daughter.
“Lord’s sake, ole man, hoist them children up here and get in! Don’t stand palavering with them people all night! I’m gwine to drive you all home myself. I only brought him for show! I wouldn’t trust him to take us home safe over bad roads in the dark,” said Mrs. Anglesea, from her seat on the box beside the coachman.
“Well, my girls and boys, have you been so spoiled by your gay city life that you will never be content with your dull, country home again?” demanded Thomas Grandiere, as he helped his big daughters to tumble up into the ox cart.
“Oh, dad, it was perfectly delightful! But we are glad to get home and see you, for all that!” answered Sophie.
“‘There’s no place like home,’”
sentimentally sighed Peggy. And all the other sisters and the brothers chimed in with her.
“Washington is well enough, but they are all too indifferent about the crops ever to amount to much, I think,” said Sam Grandiere, and his brother Ned seconded the motion. And so that party waved a last adieu to the Forces and drove off.
“Your mother and your aunt are both at our house, Rosemary, and so I came to fetch you over there,” said William Elk, as he helped his little mite of a niece into the old barouche. “You don’t grow a bit, child! Are you never going to be a woman?” he further inquired, as he settled her into her seat.
“Nature puts her finest essences into her tiniest receptacles, Uncle Elk!” said Roland, who called everybody else’s uncle his own.
But William Elk had driven off without receiving the benefit of the young man’s words.