Elinor Wyllys, vol 2 | Page 7

after that unhappy business at Wyllys-Roof, there
was, of course, a great coolness; for some time I never heard his name
mentioned there, and Mr. Wyllys seldom speaks of him now."
"Are they not reconciled, then?"
"Not entirely, I am afraid; but you know they have not met for three
years."
"I shall hardly know myself at Wyllys-Roof, without seeing Mr.
Hazlehurst and Miss Graham there."
"You will find a great change in that respect. Mrs. Taylor has not been
here since her marriage; Miss Van Alstyne seems to have taken her
place; she is a very pleasant young lady. When the family is at home
now, there seems often to be some strange gentleman with them."
"Fortune-hunters, I suppose," said Charlie, with some indignation.
"Well, the course of true love never has, and never will run quite as it
ought, I suppose. And how do all the Longbridge people come
on?--How is Uncle Josie?"
"Very well, indeed; just as good as ever to us. You must go to see him
to-morrow."

"Certainly;--and what is Uncle Dozie about?"
"At work in the vegetable-garden, as usual. He sent me a fine basket of
salad, and radishes, and onions, this morning."
"Clapp has got into a new house I see."
"Yes; he is in very good business, I believe; you saw Catherine, you
say?"
"Yes, for a minute only. I ran in to kiss Kate and the children, while
they were harnessing a horse for me at the tavern. Kate looks very well
herself. The children didn't remember much of Uncle Charlie; but they
are pretty, healthy little things, nevertheless."
The grandmother assented to the commendation of her daughter's
family; she thought them remarkably fine children. "Catherine was a
very fortunate woman," she said; "Mr. Clapp was a very superior man,
so very clever that he must do well; and the children were all
healthy--they had gone through the measles wonderfully, that spring."
Charlie had not quite as elevated an opinion of his brother-in-law as the
females of the family; he allowed his mother's remark to pass unnoticed,
however.
"And so Mr. Taylor has given up Colonnade Manor," he continued.
"Yes; he has just sold it to Mr. de Vaux, a friend of Mr. Wyllys,"
replied Miss Patsey.
"Why did he sell it, pray?"
"Well, the young ladies liked better to live about at hotels and
boarding-houses in the summer, I believe; they thought it was too dull
at Longbridge. Mr. Taylor didn't care much for the place: you know
there are some people, who, as soon as they have built a house, and got
everything in nice order, want to sell; it seems as if they did not care to
be comfortable; but I suppose it is only because they are so fond of
change."
We may as well observe, by way of parenthesis, that this fancy of
getting rid of a place as soon as it is in fine order, would probably never
occur to any man but an American, and an American of the particular
variety to which Mr. Taylor belonged.
"I don't wonder at his wanting to get rid of the house; but the situation
and the neighbourhood might have satisfied him, I think," said Charlie,
as he accepted Miss Patsey's invitation to eat the nice supper she had
prepared for him.

As he took his seat at the table, Mrs. Hubbard observed, that he
probably had not seen such short-cake as Patsey made, in Rome--to
which Charlie assented warmly. He had wished one evening, in
Florence, he said, for some of his sister's short-cake, and a good cup of
tea of her making; and the same night he dreamed that the Venus de
Medicis had made him some. He was ashamed of himself for having
had such a dream; but it could not be helped, such was the fact.
{"Venus de Medicis" = Famous nude statue of the Goddess Venus--a
1st Century BC copy of a lost Greek statue by Cleomenes of Athens--in
the Uffizi Gallery in Florence}
Mrs. Hubbard thought no woman, Venus or not, ought to be ashamed
of making good short-cake; if they were bad, that would be a different
matter.
"Well, Charlie, now you have seen all those paintings and figures you
used to talk so much about, what do you think of them?--are they really
so handsome as you expected?" asked his sister.
"They are wonderful!" exclaimed Charlie, with animation; putting
down a short-cake he had just buttered. "Wonderful!--There is no other
word to describe them."
Mrs. Hubbard observed, that she had some notion of a painting, from
the minister's portrait in the parlour--Charlie took up his short cake--she
thought a person might have satisfaction in a painting; such a picture as
that portrait; but as for those stone figures he used to wish