"An invasion by the Gauls. Why not? I for one shall be enchanted to see the result of your energy and taste."
"And Natalie shall see the Tomb in which she is so deeply interested, while you lay your homage at the feet of Miss Achsah and so fulfill a long-neglected duty."
"And at the feet of the chatelaine of Stormpoint. I am impatient for the day." And it was so arranged, and the lady, declining the proffered escort of Monsieur, left Paris for Havre, accompanied by Paula.
"A good fellow!" she thought, as she leaned back in the coupé, applying to the philosopher that very term which he had flattered himself she would not apply, "but too anxious to believe that I am his cousin and not his aunt."
CHAPTER VII.
A CONFERENCE OF SPINSTERS CONCERNING A RUNAWAY DAMSEL.
Five years have passed since the Claghorn reunion at Heidelberg. The Professor and philosopher have journeyed to that world concerning which one of the two claimed certain knowledge, and which the other regarded as unknowable. Thither we cannot follow them, but since men do not live for a day, but for all time, we shall doubtless come upon indications that the lives of these two, the things they said and did, are forces still. Meanwhile, we must concern ourselves with the living, and of those with whom we have to do, no one is more noteworthy than Achsah Claghorn.
Miss Claghorn was, as the representative of an ancient and very theological family, a citizen of no little note in Easthampton, the shady and quiet suburb of the city of Hampton. Her spotless white house was large; its grounds were, compared with those of her neighbors, large; the trees in the grounds were very large; the box-plants were huge of their kind. Miss Achsah herself was small, but by reason of her manner, which was positive and uncompromising, impressive. She lived as became her wealth and position, comfortably and without undue regard for conventionalities. She could afford so to live and had been able to afford it for many years; ever since she had shared with her brother, the Reverend Eliphalet, the bounty left to them by that other and younger brother who had died in California. On the receipt of that bounty she had retired from her position as schoolmistress, had bought the large, white house, and, together with Tabitha Cone, had undertaken to live as she pleased, succeeding in so doing more satisfactorily than is usual with those fortunate enough to be able to make similar resolves. Perhaps this was because her desires were more easily attainable than the desires pertaining to such conditions usually are.
The position of Tabitha Cone was nominally one of dependence, but, with a praiseworthy desire to rise superior to such a status, Tabitha persistently strove to rule her benefactress, which attempts were met with frequent rebellion. Miss Achsah was, at least intermittently, mistress of her own house; and both ladies had a lurking consciousness that she, Achsah, to wit, had reserves of strength which would enable her to become so permanently, if she were to develop a serious intention to that end. Both ladies, however, shrank from a struggle with that possible termination, much enjoying life as they lived it, and with no desire to terminate an invigorating and pleasing warfare.