“Oh, this is lovely, and just as papa told me it was,” I exclaimed, and then, stopping short, Aunt Brier drew me close to her, and scrutinizing me earnestly, said, with a tremor in her voice, “Yes, Gerold told you of his old home. I was so fond of him. We were like brother and sister, and I was so sorry when he died. You are not as much like him as I fancied you were from your photograph.”
“No?” I said, interrogatively, wondering if she were disappointed in me; but she soon set me right on that point by saying, “Gerold was good-looking, but you are beautiful.”
I had been told that so often, and I knew it so well without being told, that I did not feel at all elated. I was only glad that she liked my looks, and replied, “And you are lovely, and so young, too. My great aunt ought to look older.”
She smiled at that, and said, “I am nearly forty-four, and feel sometimes as if I were a hundred. But there is Kizzy on the piazza. I think we’d better hurry. She does not like to wait for anything.”
I had never really known what fear of any person was, but I felt it now, and my heart beat violently as I hastened my steps towards the spot where Aunt Keziah stood, stiff and tall and straight, and looking very imposing in her black silk gown and lace cap set on a smooth band of false hair, a bunch of keys dangling at her belt, and a dainty hemstitched handkerchief clasped in her hands. In spite of her sixty odd years, she was a handsome woman to look at, with her shoulders thrown back and her chin in the air as if she were on the alert and the defensive. Her features were clearly cut, her face smooth and pale, while her bright black eyes seemed to look me through as they traveled rapidly from my hat to my boots and back again, evidently taking in every detail of my dress, and resting finally on my face with what seemed to be disapproval.
“How do you do, Miss Doris?” she said, with a quick shutting together of her thin lips, and without the shadow of a smile.
I had cried when Aunt Brier spoke to me, but I did not want to cry now, for something of the woman’s nature must have communicated itself to mine and frozen me into a figure as hard and stiff as she was. It was a trick of mine to imitate any motion or gesture which struck me forcibly, and I involuntarily threw my shoulders back and my chin in the air, and gave her two fingers just as she had given me, and told her I was quite well, and hoped she was the same. For a moment she looked at me curiously, while it seemed to me that her features did relax a little as she asked if I were not very tired with the journey and the dusty ride in the coach from Frankfort.
“It always upsets me,” she said, suggesting that I go at once to my room and rest until dinner, which would be served sharp at six, “and,” she added, “we never wait for meals; breakfast at half-past seven in the summer, lunch at half-past twelve, dinner at six.”
Then she made a stately bow, and I felt that I was dismissed from her presence, and started to follow Aunt Beriah into the hall just as two negroes came up the walk bringing one of my trunks, which had been deposited at the entrance to the park.
“Mass’r Hinton’s man done fotchin’ t’other trunk on his barrer,” the taller negro said, in response to a look of inquiry he must have seen on my face, and instantly Aunt Kizzy’s lips came together just as they had done when she said, “How do you do, Miss Doris?”