“Of course I’ve driven all my life,” Miss Herron admitted. “Your grand-uncle, the judge, my dear, always insisted that driving was part of a gentlewoman’s education, like household management or a knowledge of English history. A bit of a race is only amusing, but what with these automobiles, there’s no pleasure in horses at all nowadays.”
“They certainly are dangerous.”
“Dangerous! They should not be allowed on the roads at all. Any more than—than drunken men. The comparison somehow pleases me, Lucy. Did you observe it?”
“Yes, yes, Cousin Agatha.” The girl turned to the older lady a face very young and fair and eyes that shone. “I was laughing at it all the time.”
It was a great pleasure, so Miss Herron assured all her friends, to feel sure that her little cousin was for a few months at least to be brought under the influence which had shaped the lives of her New England forebears. For the child to live in Herron House, to grow in knowledge of her race, so splendidly patriotic, so consistently rich and cultivated from the days when Barham was part of a colony, seemed to the proud old lady a real necessity for Lucy. She must never forget that she was a New England gentlewoman; she must learn the traditions, stiffen with the pride of her race. And because these things might grow dim or be clean forgotten, did she spend all her days in the noisy, extravagant city or the lazy places abroad.
Miss Herron rejoiced when Lucy’s father laughed, and replied to her request by sending the child to her for a whole long summer.
“She is very dear to me,” he had whispered, looking across the room to where Lucy was chattering as she poured tea. “And very lovely, Agatha.”
“She has the Herron look,” she had answered, complacently.
“You’ll take ever so good care, of her?”
“I may be trusted, I think, not to abuse any member of my family.”