“Oh! I mean about their name and history and family traditions. It’s an old Puritan family and one of the most illustrious in New England. I read somewhere the other day, that it was one of the few really historical families in America, and I have no desire to speak disrespectfully of them, only I do think they make an unnecessary amount of fuss with themselves. Oh! I must tell you about my first interview with Mr. Alexander M. Gaston. You know who he is!”
“Really, I do not,” said Margaret, lifting her eyebrows with a deprecating smile.
“Well, you are green! but, however, it’s unnecessary to enlighten you now, except to say that he is Edward’s uncle, and the head of the great house of Gaston. He’s been governor and senator and foreign minister and all sorts of things, and is now one of the most eminent men in New England, and a very excellent and accomplished gentleman. Well, soon after I became engaged to Edward he came to call upon me, and I must say his whole manner and attitude toward me were rather amazing. He was good enough to say that he welcomed me into the family, but he took pains to intimate that I was about to be the recipient of a great honor. The Gastons, he explained, had been for centuries leaders of public thought and opinion in their own State, and he was obliging enough to supply me with the dates of the landing in New England of the founders of the house, and to dwell upon their prominence among the early Puritans. I listened respectfully to this tirade, and by the time it came to a conclusion I had my little speech ready, and when he took my hand and formally welcomed me into the great house of Gaston, I replied by saying that I knew it ought to be a source of much satisfaction to Edward and myself that we were, in our small way, doing something toward healing an old breach. ‘My ancestors were Cavaliers,’ I said, ‘and for a Cavalier to marry a Puritan, is, even at this late day, helping at least a little to wipe out the memory of a long-standing feud.’ Now, I flatter myself that was rather neat.”
“Oh, Cousin Eugenia, how perfectly delicious!” exclaimed Margaret, with an outburst of gay laughter. “And what did he say?”
“I don’t exactly remember, my dear, but it was something clever and adroit. I know he retired very gracefully, and bore me no malice. He has been very kind to me always, and I am said to be his favorite of all his nephews’ wives. He is really a dear old boy, and quite worthy of all the adulation he receives, if only they wouldn’t put it on the ground of ancestry. Why, the founder of the family was engaged in some sort of haberdashery business in London! It’s odd, the inconsistencies one meets with! But I’m inured to it all now, and have learned to pose as a Gaston, like the rest of them! But what I wanted particularly to tell you, and what it concerns you to know is, that the Gastons—Edward and Louis as well as the others—are greatly prejudiced against Southerners. That was one reason why I asked you here.”
“It may make matters very difficult for me,” said Margaret, smiling.
“Not in the least, my dear. You have only to be yourself, assuming nothing. I feel a delightful security in letting matters take their course. You will know perfectly what to do, and I think nothing could be more inspiring than forcing people to abandon foolish prejudices. I should not be sorry to have your chance myself.”
“Surely, the same opportunity must once have been yours.”
“Oh no, they won’t accord me that for a moment. They say, with truth, that merely to have been born in the South does not make me a Southerner, and that, having spent as much time in the North—and, for that matter, the East and West—as in the South, I must be set down as a cosmopolitan.”
“I am almost surprised to hear you say they are prejudiced,” said Margaret; “I should suppose they were too intelligent for that.”