THE OLD PENNSYLVANIA MANSION.
The Bosworths lived behind the spur of the mountain which shut out a
portion of the valley from our house by its crown of forest-trees. I had
taken little exercise in the open air of late, for Mrs. Dennison
monopolized the horse I had been in the habit of riding, with my usual
seat in the carriage. Perhaps I felt a little hurt at this, and would
not ask favors that had until now been mine without solicitation. In my
love of out-door exercise I am half an English woman. So, mentioning to
Mrs. Lee and Jessie that I was going out for a long walk across the
fields, I started for Mrs. Bosworth's house.
It was a splendid afternoon. The sunshine, warm and golden, without
being oppressive, was softened by transparent clouds that drifted like
currents and waves of gauze athwart the sky. The meadows were full of
daisies, buttercups, and crimson clover, through which the blue-flies
and bumble-bees fluttered and hummed their drowsy music. In the pastures
clouds of grasshoppers sprang up, with a whir, from the clusters of
white everlasting that sprinkled the slopes like a snow-storm; and
little birds bent down the stately mullein-stalks with their weight, and
sang cheerily after me from the crooks of the fences.
How I loved these little creatures with their bright eyes and graceful
ways! How quietly they opened my heart to those sweet impulses that make
one grateful and child-like! My step grew buoyant, and I felt a cool,
fresh color mounting to my cheeks. The walk had done me good. I had been
too much in the house, indulging in strange fancies that were calculated
to make no one happy, and were, perhaps, unjust. How could I have sunk
into this state of mind? Was I jealous of Mrs. Dennison? Yes, possibly!
But not as another would have understood the feeling. It was rather hard
to hear the whole household singing her praises from morning till night;
and Jessie, my own Jessie, seemed so bound up in the woman.
Well, after all, these things seemed much more important in the house,
where I felt like an involuntary prisoner, than they appeared to me,
with the open fields breathing fragrance around me, and the blue skies
speaking beautifully of the beneficent God who reigned above them.
I really think the birds in that neighborhood had learned to love me a
little, they gave such quaint little looks, and burst into such volumes
of song among the hazel-bushes as I passed. Before I knew it, fragments
of melodies were on my own lips. I gathered handful after handful of the
meadow-flowers, grouping the choicest into bouquets, and scattering the
rest along my path. Thus you might have tracked my progress by tufts of
grass, and golden lilies, as the little boy in fairy history was traced
by the pebble-stones he dropped.
Mrs. Bosworth's house was one of the oldest and finest of those
ponderous Dutch mansions that are scattered over Pennsylvania. There
were rich lands to back that old-fashioned building, and any amount of
invested property, independent of the lands. After all, young Bosworth
was no contemptible match for our Jessie, even in a worldly point of
view. If his residence lacked something of the elegance and modern
appointments for which ours was remarkable, it had an aspect of age and
affluence quite as imposing. Indeed, in some respects it possessed
advantages which our house could not boast.
Majestic trees that struck their roots in a virgin soil, and shrubbery
that had grown almost into trees, surrounded the old house. One great,
white lilac-bush lifted itself above the second-story windows, and
old-fashioned white roses clambered half over the stone front. Then
there was a huge honeysuckle that spread itself like a banner upon one
corner, garlanding the eaves, and dropping down in rich festoons from
the roof itself.
But all this was nothing compared to that magnificent elm-tree, which
overhung a wing of the building with its tent-like branches, through
which the wind was eternally whispering, and the sunshine was broken
into faint flashes before it reached the roof. I had never been so much
impressed with the dignity of old times, as when I approached this
dwelling. It possessed all the respectability of a family mansion,
growing antique in the prosperity which surrounded it, without any
attempt at modern improvements.
The very flowers on the premises were old-fashioned; great snow-ball
bushes and rows of fruit-trees predominating. In the square garden, with
its pointed picket-fence, that ran along the road, I saw clusters of
smallage, and thickets of delicate fennel. On each side the broad
threshold-stone stood green boxes running over with live-forever and
house-leeks, while all around the lower edges of the stone foundation
that exquisite velvet moss, which we oftenest find on old houses, was
creeping.
I lifted the heavy brass knocker very cautiously, for it was ponderous
enough to have reverberated through the house. Even the light blow I
gave frightened me. No wonder people felt constrained to muffle knockers
like that in the good old times, when sickness came to the family.
A quiet, middle-aged colored woman came to the door. She knew me at
once, though it was the first time I had entered the house in years.
"Come in, Miss Hyde," she said, welcoming me with a genial look. "Mrs.
Bosworth said, if you called she would come right straight down and see
you; so walk in."
She opened the door of a sitting-room on the right of the hall. It was
old-fashioned like the exterior of the building. Windows sunk deep into
the wall, ponderous chairs, and a capacious, high-backed sofa with
crimson cushions, and embroidered footstools standing before it,--all
had an air of comfortable ease. The carpet had been very rich in its
time, and harmonized well with the rest of the apartment.