Part 4 (1/2)
Arkwright looked aood ti woirl's name is Severence”
”I want to meet that old wo who gave him a sense of doubt as to the superiority of his oill
”Don't be in too big a hurry for Waterloo,” jested Arkwright ”It's coh That old lady will put you in your place
After ten ot his'
for sassing the teacher”
”I want toAnd he watched her everydeferentially about her chair; watched her truly royal dignity, as she was graciously pleased to relax now and then
”Every society has its ht
”She's ours I'ht It's a bad idea to stay too long; it creates an i went, reluctantly, with several halts and backward glances at the old lady of the ebon staff
CHAPTER III
A DESPERATE YOUNG WOMAN
The house where the Severances lived, and had lived for half a century, was built by Lucius Quintus Severence, Alabama planter, suddenly and, for the antebelluh a cotton speculation When he built, Washi+ngton had no distinctly fashi+onable quarter; the neighborhood was then as now senteel discomfort the families of junior Department clerks Lucius Quintus chose the site partly for the view, partly because spacious grounds could be had at a noure, chiefly because part of his conception of aristocracy was to dwell in grandeur alish-like wall of e square On each of its four sides it put in sheepish and chop-fallen countenance a row of boarding houses In any other city the neighborhood would have been intolerable because of the noise of the rowdy children But in Washi+ngton the boarding house class cannot afford children; so, few indeed were the sates to gaze into the ht be--which was not far, because the walk and the branching drives turn abruptly soon after leaving the gates
Froreen ith perfuht birds In the eniously shut in on all sides from any view that could spoil the illusion of a forest, stood the house, Colonial, creeper-clad, brightened in all its verandas and lawns by gay flowers, pink and white predo, and not too uncomfortable in winter, as the fae A and suhtful, with their old-fashi+oned solid furniture, their subdued colors and tints, their elaborate arrangeested wealth But the Severances were not rich They had about the same amount of hborhood seeenerated when in fact it had reed, so the Severence fortune seees of standard elsewhere The Severances were no poorer; sirown richer, enormously richer The Severence ho of luxurious grounds, was a third-rate A-house, fine for a small town, but plain for a city And the Severence fortune by contrast with the fortunes so lavishly displayed in the fashi+onable quarter of the capital, was a h for comfort; it was far too small for the new style of wholesale entertainland, where the lunacy for aies in its full horror of witless vulgarity Thus, the Severences fro leaders twenty years before, had shrunk into ”quiet people,” were saved frolect only by the indoy of old Cornelia Bowker
Cornelia Boas not a Severence; in fact she was by birth indisputably a nobody Her maiden name was Lard, and the Lards were ”poor white trash” By one of those queer freaks ith nature loves to s of ence and will to make it effective Her first a labors and sacrifices incredible, she got herself a thorough education Her next ambition was to be rich; without the beauty that appeals to the senses, she lander, Henry Bowker Her final and fiercest ahter to the only son and namesake of Lucius Quintus Severence The pretensions of aristocracy would soon collapse under the feeble hands of born aristocrats were it not for two things--the passion of theup, and the frequent infusions into aristocratic veins of vigorous common blood
Cornelia Bowker, born Lard, adored ”birth” In fulfilling her third aain Froement to Lucius Severence, she ceased to be Lard or Bowker and became Severence, more of a Severence than any of the veritable Severences Soon after her son-in-law and his father died, she becaot her origin, regarded her as the true embodiment of the pride and rank of Severence--and Severence becah really the Severences were not especially blue-blooded
She did not live with her ed daughter, as two establishments were more impressive; also, she knew that she was not a livable person--and thought none the worse of herself for that characteristic of strong personalities In the Severence family, at the homestead, there were, besides five servants, but three persons--the ed Roxana and her two daughters, Margaret and Lucia--Lucia so named by Madam Bowker because with her birth ended the Severence hopes of a son to perpetuate in the direct line the family Christian name for its chief heir From the side entrance to the house extended an alley of trees, hite flowering bushes froe At one end of the alley was a pretty, arched veranda of the house, with steps descending; at the other end, a graceful fountain in a circle, round which extended a stone bench Here Margaret was in the habit of walking every good day, and even in rainy weather, immediately after lunch; and here, on the day after the Burke dance, at the usual ti, as usual--up and down, up and down, a slow even stride, her ar as she chewed a wooden tooth-pick toward a pulp As she walked, her eyes held steady like a soldier's, as if upon the small of the back of an invisible walker in front of her
Lucia, stout, rosy, lazy, sprawling upon the bench, her eyes opening and closing drowsily, watched her sister like a sleepy, coh the leafy arch, coquetted with Margaret's raven hair, and alternately brightened and shadowed her features There was little of feuarded features, ht It was one of her bad days, mentally as well as physically--probably mentally because physically She had not slept more than two hours at most, and her eyes and skin showed it
”However do you stand it, Rita!” said Lucia, as Margaret approached the fountain for the thirty-seventh tiot to keepher hands to her slender hips, and lifting her shoulders in a th of her waist
”That's nonsense,” said Lucia ”All we Severences get stout as we grow old You can't hope to escape”
”Grow old!” Margaret's broered Then she s old I don't dare think how ed If ere rich, I'd be a young girl still As it is, I' on'”
”Don't you worry about that, Rita,” said Lucia ”Don't you let the desperate I'm sure _I_ don't want to come out