After the banquet, Clara and Diana, with the two other members of their quartette, had retired apart from the crowd. It was almost sunset. They had chosen a vantage point of vision just at the summit of a soft slope, commanding the old fort and the bay. The boats lay picturesquely grouped in front. The wash of waves sent up a pleasant, calming music. They were alone, except when some promenading couple passed at the distance. Paulding was lying half-hid by the short sweet-fern bushes, smoking lazily. Clara was near him. Diana and Dunstan were at a little distance, so that a slight modulation of the voice made conversation joint or separate. Diana had been the gay one thus far; but now the pensiveness of evening seemed to quiet her.
“The sky and water and those mossy rocks remind me of Mr. Kensett’s pictures,” Clara said. “He seems to have been created to paint Newport delightfully.”
“Rather Newport for him to paint,” corrected Diana, “as the world was made for man, the immortal. Besides, Mr. Kensett is not narrowed to Newport for his subjects. I notice that so many of you who know him speak of him by his prenom. Only very genial men are so fortunate as to be treated with this familiarity, even by their friends.”
“He is indeed genial—one of the men whose personal, apart from his artistic life, is for the sunny happiness of those who know him. Apropos of prenoms, Miss Clara,” continued Dunstan, “pray what melodious, terminal syllables belong to your father’s initial, W.? G. W.—his G. is George, I know. His W. is what?”
“It is an old family name,” replied Clara; “Whitegift. My father is fond of genealogy and traces the name to a relative, a Bishop Whitegift.”
“An odd name,” said Dunstan. “I seem to have heard it before. Ah, now I recollect having read in some old family manuscript that my ancestor, Miles Standish, had some feud with a Pilgrim of that name.”
Clara laughed. “You must talk with Mr. Ira Waddy. He has a legend that the first Waddy, Whitegift by name, was cook of the Mayflower, and that there grew a feud between him and Miles Standish. The cook put too little pepper in the hero’s porridge. Hence an abiding curse, which Mr. Waddy says depressed his branch of the family until his time. He represents the democratic side of our history. My father rather scoffs at the legend. I must tell him the odd confirmation of it from you. It will shock his aristocratic feelings terribly.”
“Bah! for the legend,” said Dunstan. “Your ancestors, fair lady, were gods and goddesses of other realms than those dusky and too savoury ones where cooks do reign supreme. But I cannot permit my ancestor’s curse to rest longer upon you. In my capacity as his representative, in eldest line, I wave my hand. The curse is revoked, nay, changed to a blessing. The old feud is at an end. It will never be revived between us. We shall never quarrel.”
“I hope not,” said Clara, and turning away abruptly, she renewed her conversation with Paulding apart.