Jacqueline, as usual, was off her head at the notion of going, and Judith’s suppressed excitement did not escape Mrs. Temple’s eye. Both of them, provincials of provincials, as they were, felt a true feminine curiosity regarding the reputed splendors of Millenbeck, which was, in fact, destined to dazzle their countryfied eyes.
On the Friday evening, therefore, at half-past six, they found themselves driving down the Millenbeck lane. General Temple had begun, figuratively speaking, to shake hands across the bloody chasm from the moment he started from Barn Elms. He harangued the whole way upon the touching aspect of the reconciliation between the great leaders of the hostile armies, as typified by his present expedition. Going down the lane they caught up with Mrs. Sherrard, being driven by Mr. Morford in a top buggy.
“Jane Temple, are we a couple of fools?” called out Mrs. Sherrard, putting her head out of the buggy.
“No, Katharine Sherrard, we are a couple of Christians,” piously responded Mrs. Temple.
General Temple thrust his bare head out of the carriage-window, holding his hat in his hand, as it was his unbroken rule never to speak to a woman with his head covered, and entered into a disquisition respecting the ethics of the great civil war, which lasted until they drew up to the very door of Millenbeck.
A handsome graveled drive led up to the door, and a porte-cochère, which was really a very modest affair of glass and iron, had been thrown over the drive; but, as it was the only one ever seen in the county, all of them regarded it with great respect. Throckmorton, with old-time Virginia hospitality, met them at the steps. Like all true gentlemen, he was a model host. As he helped Mrs. Temple to alight, he raised her small, withered hand to his lips and kissed it respectfully.
“Welcome to Millenbeck, my best and earliest friend,” he said.
“George Throckmorton,” responded Mrs. Temple, with sweet gravity, “you have taught forgiveness to my hard and unforgiving heart.”
Within the house was more magnificence. The inevitable great, dark, useless hall was robbed of its coldness and bleakness by soft Turkish rugs placed over the polished floor. There was no way of heating it in the original plan, but Throckmorton’s decorator and furnisher had hit upon the plan of having a quaint Dutch stove, which now glowed redly with a hard-coal fire. The startling innovation of lighting the broad oak staircase had likewise been adopted, and at intervals up the stairway wax-candles in sconces shed a mellow half-light in the hall below.
General Temple was exuberant. He shook hands with Throckmorton half a dozen times, and informed him that, strange as the defection of a Virginian from his native State might appear, he, General Temple, believed that Throckmorton was actuated by conscientious though mistaken notions in remaining in the army after the breaking out of the war.