He wrote some days later: "What a darling you are! Anything you do will be charming. Sissly's men have arrived and are raising a racket in the armoury with hammer and saw.
"The stage will look quite wonderful between the wide double rank of equestrian figures in armour.
"Aunt Hannah writes that you called on her and that you and she are coming up on the train together, which is delightfully sensible, and exactly as it should be. Heaven alone knows how long you are going to be able to endure her. It's rather odd, you know, but I like her and always have, though she's made things disagreeable for me more than once in my life.
"Your room is ready; Aunt Hannah's adjoins. Quarters for other guests are ready also. Have you any idea how I look forward to your coming?"
Three days later his guests arrived on the first three morning trains—a jolly crowd of young people—nineteen of them—who filled his automobiles and horse-drawn vehicles. Their luggage followed in vans, from which protruded skis and hockey sticks. There being no porter, the butler of Silverwood House received them in front of the lodge at the outer gates, offering the "guest cup," a Desboro custom of many generations, originating in England, although the lodge had stood empty and the gates open since his grandfather's time.
"There was, for a moment, an unconscious and unwonted grace in his manner"
Desboro welcomed them on his own doorstep; and there was, for a moment, an unconscious and unwonted grace in his manner and bearing—an undefined echo in his voice of other and more courtly times, as he gave his arm to Aunt Hannah and led her inside the hall.