"As though our forefathers planned and builded for us better than we deserve," Miss Pocahontas said in speaking of this. She seemed to regret it and to make a point of it.
A covered wooden bridge across the river dividing the town seemed older than anything else. Indeed Miss Pocahontas herself and Selina, as the carriage rolled echoingly across this bridge, full of laughter and pretty exchange of confidences, alone seemed young of all the staid and sleepy place. For the square, brick house they came to presently, on a street of big, square houses, its yard running down to this same river, was old too, and its box hedges and its purple beeches were old with it.
"A covered wooden bridge across the river ... seemed older than anything else."
And within the house the big rooms, both above and below stairs, were filled with old furniture, and mahogany at that, not sent to the junk-shop or the attic either, but cared for and revered and openly treasured. And as for other old things there were old portraits and old brasses and old andirons, and soft-footed, pleasant-voiced old colored servants, two at least among them in spectacles and with white hair.
There were old candle-sticks, old silver and old damask on the supper table later. The pale-gray dress of Miss Boswell the elder, who was tall and pleasing, trailed with a soft rustle, and the amber-toned dress of the younger Miss Boswell was cut low.
Selina's mother had strained a point and along with the new spring street dress, had made her a soft chaille, white sprinkled over with pink rosebuds. Selina here at the Boswell table with it on, could not be too thankful!
When the meal was about half over, Miss Marcia Boswell laughed softly:
"I saw your Cousin Maria Buxton last week, Selina. She was down here in Eadston for the day to pay her taxes and took her dinner with us. She reminded me that your aunt as a girl, once was here overnight with her to a dance. She also made me admit what I've supposed all these years was hidden in my maiden breast. Which is, that when she and I and your Aunt Ann Eliza Wistar were sixteen—Ann Eliza spent a good deal of her time up here with Maria in those days—we all three were in love with the desperation of love at sixteen, with John Buxton, the father of your Culpepper. He married at twenty according to his own bent and not ours. Maria of course got him later after they were both free again. Maria usually holds to her point pretty well, as I suggested to her when she twitted me the other day. And even with two daughters of her own by her first husband, if she has a downright weakness, and she admits it herself, it's for her stepson by John Buxton, your Culpepper."
"Why," said Selina, quickly, "if Auntie's really foolish about any one person in the world, it's Culpepper."