"She has been married. She would not be 'Madam' if she had not been. She has been a widow for a long, long time. She had two children—twins—a boy and a girl. They lived to be twenty years old, and then died."
"Not both at the same time, Cousin Molly Belle?" for her tone suggested something very sorrowful.
"Yes, Molly dear. The sister fell into the river and the brother, in swimming out to save her, was seized with the cramp and sank before he could reach her. The mother has lived alone ever since, except for her servants. They are very good and faithful. Then, she has her hummers and her pygmies, who are a great deal of company to her."
"Pigs!" in intense disgust. "She can't be a very neat person."
A peal of laughter from my companions broke off the speech.
"You'll change your mind shortly," said Cousin Frank, cantering ahead to open a gate in the rail fence.
We saw the house from the gate,—a wee bit of a gray cottage, one story high, literally covered with honeysuckles of every kind I had ever heard of, and now in fullest bloom. An enormous catalpa tree, also in flower, stood in front of the cottage, shading all but one gable, and that looked as if it were made of glass. Between this gable and the garden were two spreading acacia trees, tufted with the tassel-like blossoms. The deep front porch was curtained with white jessamine, and as we walked up the gravelled path leading to it, Madam Leigh stood in the doorway.
She was a tiny old lady, no taller than I was, and wore a white dress, fine and sheer. Cousin Molly Belle told me afterward that it was India muslin, and that she wore white, winter and summer. The waist of the gown was very short, the skirt was straight, and fell to the in-step of a foot no bigger than a baby's. Her cap was also old-fashioned, made of lace, with a full crimped border under which her hair, silvery-white, was dressed in short, round curls on each side of her forehead. Her skin reminded me of a bit of rice-paper I had picked up from the floor one day. It had dropped out of the back of my father's watch, and Bud had found it and played with it until it was creased and cracked all over like "crazed" china, yet not torn. Old Madam Leigh's face could not be said to be wrinkled, for the lines were shallow. They were as fine as if made with an inkless crow quill, and so close together you would have thought there was not room for another. Her eyes were dark and bright She had French blood in her veins, and showed it in her quick glance and lively motions.
She took us directly into "the chamber" on the left side of the hall that cut the house in two. Everything there was white, too,—bed and curtains and chair-covers being of white dimity, trimmed with lace. The walls were almost covered with portraits. Some were very old. Two of the brightest hung opposite the bed where Madam Leigh must see them as soon as she opened her eyes in the morning. One was of a pretty girl in a white frock, low-necked and short-sleeved, with a red rose in the bodice, making the fair skin it rested against all the fairer. Her eyes were dark and sweet; short brown curls, like Madam Leigh's white ones, clustered about her temples. The other picture was that of a handsome boy of twenty, or thereabouts, and strikingly like his sister. A dog, with silky ears, leaned his head against his young master's arm.
I tried hard not to stare at these portraits,—to me the most interesting things in the room,—for I knew they must be the twin-children who had died together, ever and ever so many years ago. The instinct of kindly breeding told me that it would not be polite to remind the mother of her loss by looking inquisitively at them. But I could not help stealing a glance at one and the other when the grown people were intent in talk. Looking led to dreaming, as I was left to myself and the thoughts suggested by the portraits. I arranged it in my mind that brother and sister were very fond of each other; that the sister had fallen into the river where the current was strong, from some such place as Maiden's Adventure, on Mr. Pemberton's plantation, where the water was deep above a roaring fall. I thought how she called to her brother, and how he answered, and I wondered—a chill running down my spine and catching at my heart—who carried the awful news to the mother. How could she bear it? how live in this lonely place with nobody to keep her from thinking of, and missing, her husband and her children, nobody to care whether she were glad or sorry, sick or well, alive or dead?