After I read the magazine, I decided I would go out again, for I have never got over the stuffy feeling that indoors gives me. I feel as if I am only half breathing. So I put on my things and started out.
In a queer way the Jumel Mansion beckoned to me. I felt as if I must go there. I suppose it is my nervous dread of what may happen next to my bracelet that almost makes me visit it, but anyway, whatever it is, when I walk I find myself turning toward it and, before I know it, there.
And when I first reached it I was so glad I had decided to go, for I found Mr. Kempwood coming up the long walk from Amsterdam Avenue, and he waved to me, and I waited.
I thanked him as hard as I could for the elephant. He told me that he had put a little charm on that elephant and that I was to keep it as long as I liked him; and when I stopped, I must return it, for in such case his wish--or charm--would have to break. I said it was mine for life, for I was sure I would always care for him and his friendship.
Very soberly he said: “Please do.” And then, after a long breath (the wind was high again, and I suppose he felt it), he asked me where I was going. I told him to the Jumel Mansion, Washington’s headquarters, and the Roger Morris House.
He said I was a clever person to do it all at once, which was a joke, as they are all one. . . . “Suppose,” he said, “we sit down outside, or is it too cold for you?”
I replied that it wasn’t, and we climbed the high steps and settled on a green bench which faces the Jumel Mansion porch. . . . And Mr. Kempwood talked and made me see things.
“Look over there,” he said. I looked. I saw nothing until he spoke again and made me pretend, and suddenly I seemed to see. “There is an elegant carriage,” he said, “for ‘elegant’ is what they said in those days, but the horses’ heads droop, for they have come all the way from New York to enable the Charming Polly to see the spot where she will live. . . . She has got out. . . . ‘Roger,’ she says, ‘I think it is a grand site, and most beautiful we shall be situated!’ And he mutters, ‘Dearest heart of hearts,’ but under his breath, for Mrs. Robinson is with them.
“ ‘The river’s so calm flowing!’ Mary Philipse Morris, or the Charming Polly, continues. ‘But is it prudence for us to have two establishments, my husband?’
“ ‘Anything you wish, and that I can give you, is prudence,’ he responds gallantly. And Mrs. Beverly Robinson, who has overheard a bit of this, puts in with: ‘The air, my dear, for you and the children is worth a deal. . . . Often I have remarked to Beverly, since our living part time at Dobbs Ferry: “How did we stand the entire year within the strict confines of the crowded town?” ’”