Deephaven | Page 6

possibly could have looked, and Kate also found in the
closet the three great decanters with silver labels chained round their
necks, which had always been the companions of the tea-service in her
aunt's lifetime. From the little closets in the sideboard there came a
most significant odor of cake and wine whenever one opened the doors.
We used Miss Brandon's beautiful old blue India china which she had
given to Kate, and which had been carefully packed all winter. Kate sat
at the head and I at the foot of the round table, and I must confess that
we were apt to have either a feast or a famine, for at first we often
forgot to provide our dinners. If this were the case Maggie was sure to
serve us with most derisive elegance, and make us wait for as much
ceremony as she thought necessary for one of Mrs. Lancaster's

dinner-parties.
The west parlor was our favorite room down stairs. It had a great
fireplace framed in blue and white Dutch tiles which ingeniously and
instructively represented the careers of the good and the bad man; the
starting-place of each being a very singular cradle in the centre at the
top. The last two of the series are very high art: a great coffin stands in
the foreground of each, and the virtuous man is being led off by two
disagreeable-looking angels, while the wicked one is hastening from an
indescribable but unpleasant assemblage of claws and horns and eyes
which is rapidly advancing from the distance, open-mouthed, and
bringing a chain with it.
There was a large cabinet holding all the small curiosities and
knick-knacks there seemed to be no other place for,--odd china figures
and cups and vases, unaccountable Chinese carvings and exquisite
corals and sea-shells, minerals and Swiss wood-work, and articles of
vertu from the South Seas. Underneath were stored boxes of letters and
old magazines; for this was one of the houses where nothing seems to
have been thrown away. In one parting we found a parcel of old
manuscript sermons, the existence of which was a mystery, until Kate
remembered there had been a gifted son of the house who entered the
ministry and soon died. The windows had each a pane of stained glass,
and on the wide sills we used to put our immense bouquets of
field-flowers. There was one place which I liked and sat in more than
any other. The chimney filled nearly the whole side of the room, all but
this little corner, where there was just room for a very comfortable
high-backed cushioned chair, and a narrow window where I always had
a bunch of fresh green ferns in a tall champagne-glass. I used to write
there often, and always sat there when Kate sang and played. She sent
for a tuner, and used to successfully coax the long-imprisoned music
from the antiquated piano, and sing for her visitors by the hour. She
almost always sang her oldest songs, for they seemed most in keeping
with everything about us. I used to fancy that the portraits liked our
being there. There was one young girl who seemed solitary and forlorn
among the rest in the room, who were all middle-aged. For their part
they looked amiable, but rather unhappy, as if she had come in and

interrupted their conversation. We both grew very fond of her, and it
seemed, when we went in the last morning on purpose to take leave of
her, as if she looked at us imploringly. She was soon afterward boxed
up, and now enjoys society after her own heart in Kate's room in
Boston.
There was the largest sofa I ever saw opposite the fireplace; it must
have been brought in in pieces, and built in the room. It was broad
enough for Kate and me to lie on together, and very high and square;
but there was a pile of soft cushions at one end. We used to enjoy it
greatly in September, when the evenings were long and cool, and we
had many candles, and a fire--and crickets too--on the hearth, and the
dear dog lying on the rug. I remember one rainy night, just before Miss
Tennant and Kitty Bruce went away; we had a real drift-wood fire, and
blew out the lights and told stories. Miss Margaret knows so many and
tells them so well. Kate and I were unusually entertaining, for we
became familiar with the family record of the town, and could recount
marvellous adventures by land and sea, and ghost-stories by the dozen.
We had never either of us been in a society consisting of so many
travelled people! Hardly a man but had been the most of his life at sea.
Speaking of ghost-stories, I must