 | CHAPTER XXIV.
WE BEHOLD GRANDEUR. Oldtown folks |  |
24. CHAPTER XXIV.
WE BEHOLD GRANDEUR.
IT was just at dusk that our carriage stood before the door of
a respectable mansion at the north end of Boston.
I remember our alighting and passing through a wide hall
with a dark oaken staircase, into a low-studded parlor, lighted
by the blaze of a fire of hickory logs, which threw out tongues
of yellow flame, and winked at itself with a thousand fanciful
flashes, in the crinkles and angles of a singularly high and
mighty pair of brass andirons.
A lovely, peaceful old lady, whose silvery white hair and black
dress were the most striking features of the picture, kissed Lady
Lothrop, and then came to us with a perfect outgush of motherly
kindness. “Why, the poor little dears! the little darlings!” she
said, as she began with her trembling fingers to undo Tina's bonnet-strings.
“Did they want to come to Boston and see the great
city? Well, they should. They must be cold; there, put them
close by the fire, and grandma will get them a nice cake pretty
soon. Here, I 'll hold the little lady,” she said, as she put Tina
on her knee.
The child nestled her head down on her bosom as lovingly and
confidingly as if she had known her all her days. “Poor babe,”
said the old lady to Lady Lothrop, “who could have had a heart to
desert such a child? and this is the boy,” she said, drawing
Harry to her and looking tenderly at him. “Well, a father of
the fatherless is God in his holy habitation.” There was something
even grand about the fervor of this sentence as she uttered
it, and Tina put up her hand with a caressing gesture around the
withered old neck.
“Debby, get these poor children a cake,” said the lady to a
brisk, energetic, rather high-stepping individual, who now entered
the apartment.
“Come now, mother, do let it rest till supper-time. If we let
you alone, you would murder all the children in your neighborhood
with cake and sugar-plums; you 'd be as bad as King
Herod.”
Miss Debby was a well-preserved, up-and-down, positive,
cheery, sprightly maiden lady of an age lying somewhere in the
indeterminate region between forty and sixty. There was a
positive, brusque way about all her movements, and she advanced
to the fire, rearranged the wood, picked up stray brands,
and whisked up the coals with a brush, and then, seating herself
bolt upright, took up the business of making our acquaintance in
the most precise and systematic manner.
“So this is Master Horace Holyoke. How do you do, sir?”
As previously directed, I made my best bow with anxious
politeness.
“And this is Master Harry Percival, is it?” Harry did the
same.
“And this,” she added, turning to Tina, “is Miss Tina Percival,
I understand? Well, we are very happy to see good little
children in this house always.” There was a rather severe emphasis
on the good, which, together with the somewhat martial
and disciplinary air which invested all Miss Deborah's words and
actions, was calculated to strike children with a wholesome awe.
Our resolution “to be very good indeed” received an immediate
accession of strength. At this moment a serving-maid appeared
at the door, and, with eyes cast down, and a stiff, respect
ful courtesy, conveyed the information, “If you please, ma'am,
tea is ready.”
This humble, self-absed figure — the utter air of self-abnegation
with which the domestic seemed to intimate that, unless
her mistress pleased, tea was not ready, and that everything in
creation was to be either ready or not ready according to her
sovereign will and good pleasure — was to us children a new
lesson in decorum.
“Go tell Lady Widgery that tea is served,” said Miss
Deborah, in a loud, resounding voice. “Tell her that we will
wait her ladyship's convenience.”
The humble serving-maid courtesied, and closed the door softly
with reverential awe. On the whole, the impression upon our
minds was deeply solemn; we were about to see her ladyship.
Lady Widgery was the last rose of summer of the departed
aristocracy. Lady Lothrop's title was only by courtesy; but Sir
Thomas Widgery was a live baronet; and as there were to be
no more of these splendid dispensations in America, one may
fancy the tenderness with which old Tory families cherished the
last lingering remnants.
The door was soon opened again, and a bundle of black silk
appeared, with a pale, thin face looking out of it. There was to
be seen the glitter of a pair of sharp, black eyes, and the shimmer
of a thin white hand with a diamond ring upon it. These
were the items that made up Lady Widgery, as she dawned
upon our childish vision.
Lest the reader should conceive any false hopes or impressions,
I may as well say that it turned out, on further acquaintance,
that these items were about all there was of Lady Widgery.
It was one of the cases where Nature had picked up a very indifferent
and commonplace soul, and shut it up in a very intelligent-looking
body. From her youth up, Lady Widgery's
principal attraction consisted in looking as if there was a great
deal more in her than there really was. Her eyes were sparkling
and bright, and had a habit of looking at things in this world
with keen, shrewd glances, as if she were thinking about them
to some purpose, which she never was. Sometimes they were
tender and beseeching, and led her distracted admirers to feel as
if she were melting with emotions that she never dreamed of.
Thus Lady Widgery had always been rushed for and contended
for by the other sex; and one husband had hardly time to be cold in
his grave before the air was filled with the rivalry of candidates
to her hand; and after all the beautiful little hoax had nothing
for it but her attractive soul-case. In her old age she still looked
elegant, shrewd, and keen, and undeniably high-bred, and carried
about her the prestige of rank and beauty. Otherwise she was
a little dry bundle of old prejudices, of faded recollections of
past conquests and gayeties, and weakly concerned about her own
a most sacred subject. She had a somewhat entertaining
manner of rehearsing the gossip and scandals of the last forty
years, and was, so far as such a person could be, religious: that
is to say, she kept all the feasts and fasts of the Church scrupulously.
She had, in a weakly way, a sense of some responsibility
in this matter, because she was Lady Widgery, and because infidelity
was prevailing in the land, and it became Lady Widgery
to cast her influence against it. Therefore it was that, even at
the risk of her precious life, as she thought, she had felt it imperative
to come to Boston to celebrate Easter Sunday.
When she entered the room there was an immediate bustle of
welcome. Lady Lothrop ran up to her, saluting her with an
appearance of great fondness, mingled, I thought, with a sort of
extreme deference. Miss Deborah was pressing in her attentions.
“Will you sit a moment before tea to get your feet warm, or
will you go out at once? The dining-room is quite warm.”
Lady Widgery's feet were quite warm, and everybody was so
glad to hear it, that we were filled with wonder.
Then she turned and fixed her keen, dark eyes on us, as if she
were reading our very destiny, and asked who we were. We
were all presented circumstantially, and the brilliant eyes seemed
to look through us shrewdly, as we made our bows and courtesies.
One would have thought that she was studying us with a deep interest,
which was not the case.
We were now marshalled out to the tea-table, where we children
had our plates put in a row together, and were waited on with
obsequious civility by Mrs. Margery and another equally starched
and decorous female, who was the attendant of Lady Widgery.
We stood at our places a moment, while the lovely old lady, raising
her trembling hand, pronounced the words of the customary
grace: “For what we are now about to receive, the Lord make
us truly thankful.” Her voice trembled as she spoke, and somehow
the impression of fragility and sanctity that she made on me
awoke in me a sort of tender awe. When the blessing was over,
the maids seated us, and I had leisure to notice the entirely new
scene about me.
It was all conducted with an inexpressible stateliness of propriety,
and, in an underfined way, the impression was produced
upon my mind that the frail, shivery, rather thin and withered
little being, enveloped in a tangle of black silk wraps, was something
inexpressibly sacred and sublime. Miss Deborah waited
on her constantly, pressingly, energetically; and the dear, sweet
old white-haired lady tended her with obsequiousness, which,
like everything else that she did, was lost in lovingness; and
Lady Lothrop, to me the most awe-inspiring of the female race,
paled her ineffectual fires, and bowed her sacred head to the
rustling little black silk bundle, in a way that made me inwardly
wonder. The whole scene was so different from the wide, rough,
noisy, free-and-easy democracy of my grandmother's kitchen,
that I felt crusted all over with an indefinite stiffness of embarrassment,
as if I had been dipped in an alum-bath. At the head
of the table there was an old silver tea-urn, looking heavy
enough to have the weight of whole generations in it, into which,
at the moment of sitting down, a serious-visaged waiting-maid
dropped a red-hot weight, and forthwith the noise of a violent
boiling arose. We little folks looked at each other inquiringly,
but said nothing. All was to us like an enchanted palace. The
great, mysterious tea-urn, the chased silver tea-caddy, the precise
and well-considered movements of Miss Deborah as she
rinsed the old embossed silver teapots in the boiling water, the
India-china cups and plates, painted with the family initials and
family crest, all were to us solemn signs and symbols of that
upper table-land of gentility, into which we were forewarned by
Aunt Lois we were to enter.
“There,” said Miss Deborah, with emphasis, as she poured
and handed to Lady Widgery a cup of tea, — “there 's some of
the tea that my brother saved at the time of that disgraceful
Boston riot, when Boston Harbor was floating with tea-chests.
His cargo was rifled in the most scandalous manner, but he went
out in a boat and saved some at the risk of his life.”
Now my most sacred and enthusiastic remembrance was of
the glow of patriotic fervor with which, seated on my grandfather's
knee, I had heard the particulars of that event at a time
had all the life and vividness of a recent transaction. I
cannot describe the clarion tones in which Miss Deborah rung
out the word disgraceful, in connection with an event which had
always set my blood boiling with pride and patriotism. Now, as
if convicted of sheep-stealing, I felt myself getting red to the
very tips of my ears.
“It was a shameful proceeding,” sighed Lady Widgery, in her
pretty, high-bred tones, as she pensively stirred the amber fluid
in her teacup. “I never saw Sir Thomas so indignant at anything
in all my life, and I 'm sure it gave me a sick-headache
for three days, so that I had to stay shut up in a dark room, and
could n't keep the least thing on my stomach. What a mysterious
providence it is that such conduct should be suffered to lead
to success!”
“Well,” said Lady Lothrop, sipping her tea on the other side,
“clouds and darkness are about the Divine dispensations; but
let us hope it will be all finally overruled for the best.”
“O, come,” said Miss Debby, giving a cheerful, victorious
crow of defiance from behind her teapots. “Dorothy will be
down on us with the tip-end of one of her husband's sermons,
of course. Having married a Continental Congress parson, she
has to say the best she can; but I, Deborah Kittery, who was
never yet in bondage to any man, shall be free to have my say
to the end of my days, and I do say that the Continental Congress
is an abomination in the land, and the leaders of it, if
justice had been done, they would all have been hanged high as
Haman; and that there is one house in old Boston, at the North
End, and not far from the spot where we have the honor to be,
where King George now reigns as much as ever he did, and
where law and order prevail in spite of General Washington
and Mrs. Martha, with her court and train. It puts me out of
all manner of patience to read the papers, — receptions to 'em
here, there, and everywhere; — I should like to give 'em a reception.”
“Come, come, Deborah, my child, you must be patient,” said
the old lady. “The Lord's ways are not as our ways. He
knows what is best.”
“I dare say he does, mother, but we know he does let wickedness
triumph to an awful extent. I think myself he 's given
this country up.”
“Let us hope not,” said the mother, fervently.
“Just look at it,” said Miss Deborah. “Has not this miserable
rebellion broken up the true Church in this country just as
it was getting a foothold? has it not shaken hands with French
infidelity? Thomas Jefferson is a scoffing infidel, and he drafted
their old Declaration of Independence, which, I will say, is the
most abominable and blasphemous document that ever sinners
dared to sign.”
“But General Washington was a Churchman,” said Lady
Widgery, “and they were always very careful about keeping the
feasts and fasts. Why, I remember, in the old times, I have
been there to Easter holidays, and we had a splendid ball.”
“Well, then, if he was in the true Church, so much the worse
for him,” said Miss Deborah. “There is some excuse for men of
Puritan families, because their ancestors were schismatics and disorganizers
to begin with, and came over here because they
did n't like to submit to lawful government. For my part, I
have always been ashamed of having been born here. If I 'd
been consulted I should have given my voice against it.”
“Debby, child, how you do talk!” said the old lady.
“Well, mother, what can I do but talk? and it 's a pity if I
should n't be allowed to do that. If I had been a man, I 'd
have fought; and, if I could have my way now, I 'd go back to
England and live, where there 's some religion and some government.”
“I don't see,” said the old lady, “but people are doing pretty
well under the new government.”
“Indeed, mother, how can you know anything about it?
There 's a perfect reign of infidelity and immorality begun.
Why, look here, in Boston and Cambridge things are going just
as you might think they would. The college fellows call themselves
D'Alembert, Rousseau, Voltaire, and other French heathen
names; and there 's Ellery Davenport! just look at him, —
came straight down from generations of Puritan ministers, and
how to order himself lowly and reverently to all his betters.”
Here there was such a burst of pleading feminine eloquence on
all hands as showed that general interest which often pervades
the female breast for some bright, naughty, wicked prodigal
son. Lady Widgery and old Mrs. Kittery and Lady Lothrop
all spoke at once. “Indeed, Miss Deborah,” — “Come, come,
Debby,” — “You are too bad, — he goes to church with us sometimes.”
“To church, does he?” said Miss Debby, with a toss; “and
what does he go for? Simply to ogle the girls.”
“We should be charitable in our judgments,” said Lady Widgery.
“Especially of handsome young men,” said Miss Debby, with
strong irony. “You all know he does n't believe as much as a
heathen. They say he reads and speaks French like a native, and
that 's all I want to know of anybody. I 've no opinion of such
people; a good honest Christian has no occasion to go out of his
own language, and when he does you may be pretty sure it 's for
no good.”
“O, come now, Deborah, you are too sweeping altogether,”
said Lady Lothrop; “French is of course an elegant accomplishment.”
“I never saw any good of the French language, for my part,
I must confess,” said Miss Debby, “nor, for that matter, of the
French nation either; they eat frogs, and break the Sabbath, and
are as immoral as the old Canaanites. It 's just exactly like them
to aid and abet this unrighteous rebellion. They always hated
England, and they take delight in massacres and rebellions, and
every kind of mischief, ever since the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Well, well, we shall see what 'll come of these ungodly
levelling principles in time. `All men created free and equal,'
forsooth. Just think of that! clearly against the church catechism.”
“Of course that is all infidelity,” said Lady Widgery, confidently.
“Sir Thomas used to say it was the effect on the lower
classes he dreaded. You see these lower classes are something
dreadful; and what 's to keep them down if it is n't religion? as
Sundays. He felt such a responsibility.”
“Well,” said Miss Deborah, “you 'll see. I predict we shall
see the time when your butcher and your baker, and your candlestick-maker
will come into your parlor and take a chair as easy
as if they were your equals, and every servant-maid will be
thinking she must have a silk gown like her mistress. That 's
what we shall get by our revolution.”
“But let us hope it will be all overruled for good,” said Lady
Lothrop.
“O, overruled, overruled!” said Miss Deborah. “Of course
it will be overruled. Sodom and Gomorrah were overruled for
good, but 't was a great deal better not to be living there about
those times.” Miss Debby's voice had got upon so high a key,
and her denunciations began to be so terrifying, that the dear
old lady interposed.
“Well, children, do let 's love one another, whatever we do,”
she said; “and, Debby, you must n't talk so hard about Ellery, —
he 's your cousin, you know.”
“Besides, my dear,” said Lady Widgery, “great allowances
should be made for his domestic misfortunes.”
“I don't see why a man need turn infidel and rebel because
his wife has turned out a madwoman,” said Miss Debby; “what
did he marry her for?”
“O my dear, it was a family arrangement to unite the two
properties,” said Lady Widgery. “You see all the great Pierrepoint
estates came in through her, but then she was quite shocking,
— very peculiar always, but after her marriage her temper
was dreadful, — it made poor Ellery miserable, and drove him
from home; it really was a mercy when it broke out into real
insanity, so that they could shut her up. I 've always had great
tenderness for Ellery on that account.”
“Of course you have, because you 're a lady. Did I ever
know a lady yet that did n't like Ellery Davenport, and was n't
ready to go to the stake for him? For my part I hate him, because,
after all, he humbugs me, and will make me like him in
spite of myself. I have to watch and pray against him all the
time.”
And as if, by the odd law of attraction which has given birth
to the proverb that somebody is always nearest when you are
talking about him, at this moment the dining-room door was
thrown open, and the old man-servant announced “Colonel Ellery
Davenport.”
“Colonel!” said Miss Debby, with a frown and an accent of
contempt. “How often must I tell Hawkins not to use those
titles of the old rebel mob army? Insubordination is beginning
to creep in, I can see.”
These words were lost in the bustle of the entrance of one on
whom, after listening to all the past conversation, we children
looked with very round eyes of attention. What we saw was
a tall, graceful young man, whose air and movements gave a
singular impression of both lightness and strength. He carried
his head on his shoulders with a jaunty, slightly haughty air,
like that of a thorough-bred young horse, and there was quality
and breeding in every movement of his body. He was dressed
in the imposing and picturesque fashion of those times, with a
slight military suggestion in its arrangements. His hair was
powdered to a dazzling whiteness, and brushed off his low
Greek forehead, and the powder gave that peculiar effect to
the eye and complexion which was one of the most distinctive
traits of that style of costume. His eyes were of a deep violet
blue, and of that lively, flashing brilliancy which a painter could
only represent by double lights. They seemed to throw out light
like diamonds. He entered the room bowing and smiling with
the gay good-humor of one sure of pleasing. An inspiring sort
of cheerfulness came in with him, that seemed to illuminate the
room like a whole stream of sunshine. In short, he fully justified
all Miss Deborah's fears.
In a moment he had taken a rapid survey of the party; he
had kissed the hand of the dear old lady; he had complimented
Lady Widgery; he had inquired with effusion after the health of
Parson Lothrop, and ended all by an adroit attempt to kiss Miss
Deborah's hand, which earned him a smart little cuff from that
wary belligerent.
“No rebels allowed on these premises,” said Miss Debby, sententiously.
“On my soul, cousin, you forget that peace has been declared,”
he said, throwing himself into a chair with a nonchalant freedom.
“Peace! not in our house. I have n't surrendered, if Lord
Cornwallis has,” said Miss Debby, “and I consider you as the
enemy.”
“Well, Debby, we must love our enemies,” said the old lady,
in a pleading tone.
“Certainly you must,” he replied quickly; “and here I 've
come to Boston on purpose to go to church with you to-morrow.”
“That 's right, my boy,” said the old lady. “I always knew
you 'd come into right ways at last.”
“O, there are hopes of me, certainly,” he said; “if the gentler
sex will only remember their mission, and be guardian angels, I
think I shall be saved in the end.”
“You mean that you are going to wait on pretty Lizzie Cabot
to church to-morrow,” said Miss Debby; “that 's about all the
religion there is in it.”
“Mine is the religion of beauty, fair cousin,” said he. “If I
had had the honor of being one of the apostles, I should have
put at least one article to that effect into our highly respectable
creed.”
“Ellery Davenport, you are a scoffer.”
“What, I? because I believe in the beautiful? What is goodness
but beauty? and what is sin but bad taste? I could prove
it to you out of my grandfather Edwards's works, passim,
and I think nobody in New England would dispute him.”
“I don't know anything about him,” said Miss Debby, with a
toss. “He was n't in the Church.”
“Mere matter of position, cousin. Could n't very well be
when the Church was a thousand miles across the water; but he
lived and died a stanch loyalist, — an aristocrat in the very
marrow of his bones, as anybody may see. The whole of his
system rests on the undisputed right of big folks to eat up little
folks in proportion to their bigness, and the Creator, being
biggest of all, is dispensed from all obligation to seek anything
but his own glory. Here you have the root-doctrine of
the divine right of kings and nobles, who have only to follow
Majesty King George has of late been doing with his American
colonies. If he had got the treatise on true virtue by heart, he
could not have carried out its principles better.”
“Well, now, I never knew that there was so much good in
President Edwards before,” said Lady Widgery, with simplicity.
“I must get my maid to read me that treatise some time.”
“Do, madam,” said Ellery. “I think you will find it exactly
adapted to your habits of thought, and extremely soothing.”
“It will be a nice thing for her to read me to sleep with,” said
Lady Widgery, innocently.
“By all means,” said Ellery, with an indescribable mocking
light in his great blue eyes.
For my own part, having that strange, vibrating susceptibility
of constitution which I have described as making me
peculiarly impressible by the moral sphere of others, I felt in
the presence of this man a singular and painful contest of attraction
and repulsion, such as one might imagine to be produced
by the near approach of some beautiful but dangerous animal.
His singular grace and brilliancy awoke in me an undefined antagonism
akin to antipathy, and yet, as if under some enchantment,
I could not keep my eyes off from him, and eagerly listened
to everything that he had to say.
With that quick insight into human nature which enabled him,
as by a sort of instinct, to catch the reflex of every impression
which he made on any human being, he surveyed the row of
wide-open, wondering, admiring eyes, which followed him at our
end of the table.
“Aha, what have we here?” he said, as he advanced and laid
his hand on my head. I shuddered and shook it off with a feeling
of pain and dislike amounting to hatred.
“How now, my little man?” he said; “what 's the matter
here?” and then he turned to Tina. “Here 's a little lady will
be more gracious, I know,” and he stooped and attempted to kiss
her.
The little lady drew her head back and repulsed him with the
dignity of a young princess.
“Upon my word,” he said, “we learn the tricks of our trade
early, don't we? Pardon me, petite mademoiselle,” he said as he
retreated, laughing. “So you don't like to be kissed?”
“Only by proper persons,” said Tina, with that demure
gravity which she could at times so whimsically assume, but sending
with the words a long mischievous flash from under her
downcast eyelashes.
“Upon my word, if there is n't one that 's perfect in Mother
Eve's catechism at an early age,” said Ellery Davenport.
“Young lady, I hope for a better acquaintance with you one of
these days.”
“Come Ellery, let the child alone,” said Miss Debby; “why
should you be teaching all the girls to be forward? If you notice
her so much she will be vain.”
“That 's past praying for, anyhow,” said he, looking with admiration
at the dimpling, sparkling face of Tina, who evidently was
dying to answer him back. “Don't you see the monkey has her
quiver full of arrows?” he said. “Do let her try her infant hand
on me.”
But Miss Debby, eminently proper, rose immediately, and
broke up the tea-table session by proposing adjournment to the
parlor.
After this we had family prayers, the maid-servants and man-servant
being called in and ranged in decorous order on a bench
that stood prepared for exactly that occasion in a corner of the
room. Miss Deborah placed a stand, with a great quarto edition
of the Bible and prayer-book, before her mother, and the old
lady read in a trembling voice the psalm, the epistle, and the
gospel for Easter evening, and then, all kneeling, the evening
prayers. The sound of her tremulous voice, and the beauty of the
prayers themselves, which I vaguely felt, impressed me so much
that I wept, without knowing why, as one sometimes does at
plaintive music. One thing in particular filled me with a solemn
surprise; and that was the prayers, which I had never heard
before, for “The Royal Family of England.” The trembling
voice rose to fervent clearness on the words, “We beseech Thee,
with Thy favor, to behold our most Sovereign Lord, King
that he may alway incline to Thy will, and walk in Thy way. Endue
him plenteously with heavenly gifts, grant him in health
and wealth long to live, strengthen him that he may vanquish
and overcome all his enemies, and finally after this life may
attain everlasting joy and felicity, through Jesus Christ our
Lord.”
The loud “Amen” from Miss Debby which followed this,
heartily chorussed as it was by the well-taught man-servant and
maid-servants, might have done any king's heart good. For my
part, I was lost in astonishment; and when the prayer followed
“for the gracious Queen Charlotte, their Royal Highnesses,
George, Prince of Wales, the Princess Dowager of Wales, and
all the Royal Family,” my confusion of mind was at its height.
All these unknown personages were to be endued with the Holy
Spirit, enriched with heavenly grace, and brought to an everlasting
kingdom, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. I must confess
that all I had heard of them previously, in my education, had
not prepared me to see the propriety of any peculiar celestial
arrangements in their favor; but the sweet and solemn awe inspired
by the trembling voice which pleaded went a long way
towards making me feel as if there must have been a great mistake
in my bringing up hitherto.
When the circle rose from their knees, Ellery Davenport said
to Miss Debby, “It 's a pity the king of England could n't know
what stanch supporters he has in Boston.”
“I don't see,” said the old lady, “why they won't let us have
that prayer read in churches now; it can't do any harm.”
“I don't, either,” said Ellery. “For my part, I don't know any
one who needs praying for more than the King of England; but
the prayers of the Church don't appear to have been answered
in his case. If he had been in the slightest degree `endowed
with heavenly gifts,' he need n't have lost these American colonies.”
“Come, Ellery, none of your profane talk,” said Miss Debby;
“you don't believe in anything good.”
“On the contrary, I always insist on seeing the good before I
from it.”
“For shame, Ellery, when children are listening to you!” said
Miss Debby. “But come, my little folks,” she added, rising
briskly, “it 's time for these little eyes to be shut.”
The dear old lady called us all to her, and kissed us “good
night,” laying her hand gently on our heads as she did so. I
felt the peaceful influence of that hand go through me like music,
and its benediction even in my dreams.
| CHAPTER XXIV.
WE BEHOLD GRANDEUR. Oldtown folks | |