Claire, whom we picked up at her home on the way to the Misses Laurens', endeavored to prepare us for the stilted dignity of our prospective hostesses. We had seen them in the bus and knew how they could conduct themselves; but we had also seen them haggling for shrimps, so we knew they had their weaknesses; and we had heard one of them sing, and knew that she at least had a heart.
In answer to the bell, which, by the way, was the old-fashioned pulling kind that made a faint jangle 'way off in the most remote end of the house, a gawky, extremely black girl opened the door that led from the street to a great long porch or gallery. Steps from this porch led to a tangled old garden with palmettos and magnolias shading the walks, sadly neglected and grass-grown, that wound around flower beds long since given over to their own sweet will. A fat stone Cupid, heavily draped in cumbersome stone folds, was in the act of shooting an iron arrow at a snub-nosed Psyche some ten feet from him. There was a sun-dial in the center of the garden, and every now and then one spied an old stone bench, crumbling and moss-grown, through the tangle of vines and shrubs.
"Oh!" came from all of us with one accord. It was very lovely and very pathetic, this old garden, so beautiful and so neglected and gone to seed!
"Louis is wild to restore it," whispered Claire. "You know, he can do the most wonderful things with a garden."
We did know, having peeped into their garden so rudely the day before, but we kept very quiet about that.
The gawky black girl plunged ahead of us and ushered us into the house door. This door was smaller than the one on the street, but followed the same chaste style of architecture. The hall was astonishingly narrow, but the room we were told to "Jes' go in an' res' yo'se'fs in yander!" we found to be of fine proportions, a lofty, spacious room.
The fiddle-backed chairs and the spindle-legged tables and claw-footed sofas in that room would have driven a collector green with envy. Curtains hung at the windows that were fit for bridal veils, so fine they were and so undoubtedly real. The portraits that lined the walls were so numerous and so at home that somehow I felt it an impertinence that I, a mere would-be boarder, should look at them. They belonged and I didn't, and if by good luck I could obtain an introduction to them, then I might make so bold as to raise my eyes to them, but not before.
There was a dim, religious light in the room, and the portraits, many of them needing varnishing and cleaning, had almost retired into their backgrounds. They peered out at us in some indignation, those great soldiers and statesmen, those belles and beauties. I don't know why it is that ancestors always attained eminence and were great whatever they tried to do, while descendants have to struggle along in mediocrity, no matter how hard they try.
The Misses Laurens glided into the room, and Claire introduced us. I don't know how the girl had accounted for her acquaintance with us. Perhaps she had not been compelled to account at all. We were received with courtesy but with a strange aloofness that made me feel as though I had just had the pleasure of being presented to one of the portraits, not real flesh and blood. Arabella and Judith were their names. To our astonishment the elder, Miss Arabella, turned out to be the sentimental one with the voice, while Miss Judith, the younger, was the sterner of the two and evidently the prime mover in this business of taking "paying guests." Usually it is the younger sister who goes off to romance and the elder who is more practical; at least, it is that way in fiction.
"We have come to you, hoping you will take us to"—Mrs. Green, who was spokesman for us, faltered; could she say "board" to those two? Never!—"will let us come to stay with you." That was better.