No one looked toward the house on Vesey Street. The Knickerbockers never frequented the market—Jonathan Knickerbocker forbade his family's participation in such vulgar customs.
Georgina did not descend to her sitting-room in as pleasant a humor as was to have been expected from her waking contemplations. She jangled her keys so ominously as she strutted through the halls and pantries that Julie was afraid to venture out. On the day before Easter the little woman was in the habit of stealing away to a by-lane near the market. From a discreet distance she directed her purchases. Children would run for her oranges, the cock-a-nee-nae necessary to her happiness, the boxes of Poppleton sweets and foreign nuts. When they were very swift she would reward them with as much as a dime apiece, so great was the delight she felt in providing a secret store of goodies.
To-day there was no escaping. The market was sold out and the booths carried away before she finished helping her sister tie up the Easter presents. It was a custom among the ladies of York to exchange chaste and useful gifts of their own handiwork. Worsted hat-bag covers and silk mittens were the favorites. Mrs. Rumbell was the one exception to the rule. She still cut up her father's brocade vests into small squares, which she filled with dried rose-geranium leaves and distributed among her acquaintance. Three generations had received these fragrant marks of her regard, and the wits accused her relative of having been a Hollander, addicted to the habit of swarthing himself in superfluous garments. Members of the Scruggins set went further, and hinted maliciously that he was a dealer in old clothes.
Miss Georgina preferred silk mittens, and gave and received no less than a dozen pairs a season. If the ones sent to her were of a color she did not like, she kept them for a year or two, and then packed them off again. This was quite permissible in York. On one occasion Georgina's own mittens were returned to her, but far from being angry, she smiled a grim welcome at them, and remarked to her household that she was glad to see them back for they were at least fashioned of pure silk, and that was more than she could say of many pairs that had been sent to her.
Quaint little ladies of Gothamtown—quaint little old-time figures!—flitting in and out of your ancient homes like shadows!—who cares to-day for your petty gifts, your plans, and jealousies? Only one or two remember you. The walks you trod are vanishing, the water-front gardens where you smiled and languished at sedate gentlemen are mostly hidden 'neath bricks and mortar, and the very buildings you were born in, that stood so long impervious to the rude hands of progress, are being demolished. Those musty garments of Juma's "ole Miss," the friend of Mrs. Rumbell, are now folded in some attic trunk with your own pet vanities. What would the haughty Miss Georgina have said if she could have gazed through the door of the future and seen a Scruggins brat grown into a leader of fashion and carrying her own tortoise fan—sold with other Knickerbocker effects at the last vendue?
If one had loitered in Vesey Street that afternoon before Easter so many years past, one would, no doubt, have joined the stragglers about the gates of Snograss House, and watched the members of St. Paul's Easter Guild mince up Broadway, carefully keeping to the pave. The Flying Swan from Elizabethtown was due at four o'clock, and those timid ladies of the long ago knew that the swaying, swaggering bedlam of a coach would enjoy spattering them as it rattled up to the City Hotel. On the porch of that fine hostelry, where Mr. Clarke once wooed his muse and scores of thirsty throats the wine-cup, stood the host, Davy Juniper, whose very name was synonymous with cheer. Through the half-opened door came loud gusts of unceremonious laughter as the portly innkeeper, curveting on tiptoe, swung his garland of Easter green over the sign-board. Davy's eyes were riveted on the flashing colors of feminine gear across the street. Now Mrs. Rumbell tottered by and bobbed to him; now a bevy of the Scruggins set passed the house opposite, and gazed in, like forbidden Peris at the door of Paradise. Sometimes the street was covered with pedestrians. The quality abroad affected the good man's spirits. He began to pipe some merry verses from a tap-room ditty:
Major Macpherson heav'd a sigh, Tol, de diddle, dol, dol; And Major Macpherson didn't know why, Tol, de diddle, dol, dol; But Major Macpherson soon found out, Tol, de diddle, dol, dol; 'Twas all for Miss Lavinia Scout, Tol, de diddle, dol, dol.