d, even Martin Cortright had not
only come wholly out of his shell, but might have been said to have
fairly perched on top of it, before starting on a reminiscent career with
his hostess, beginning at one of the monthly meetings of the Historical
Society; for though Martin's past belonged more to the "Second Avenue"
faction of the old east side, and Miss Lavinia to the west, among the
environs of what had once been Greenwich and Chelsea villages, they had
trodden the same paths, though not at the same time. While Sylvia and the
"Professor," as she at once began to call him, picked up the web of the
college loom that takes in threads of silk, wool, and cotton, and mixing
or separating them at random, turns out garments of complete fashion and
pattern, or misfits full of false starts or dropped stitches that not
only hamper the wearers, but sometimes their families, for life. All that
Evan and I had to do was to maintain a sympathetic silence, kept by
occasional ejaculations and murmurs from growing so profound as to cause
a draught at our corner of the table. "Yes, we used to go there
regularly," I heard Miss Lavinia say; "when we were girls Eleanor
(Barbara's mother) and I attended the same school--Miss Black's,--Eleanor
being a boarding and I a day pupil and a clergyman's daughter also,
which, in those days, was considered a sort of patent of respectability.
Miss Black used to allow her to spend the shorter holidays with me and go
to those historical lectures as a matter of course. We never publicly
mentioned the fact that Eleanor also liked to come to my house to get
thoroughly warmed and take a bath, as one of Miss Black's principles of
education was that feminine propriety and cold rooms were synonymous, and
the long room with a glass roof, sacred to bathing, was known as the
'refrigerator'; but those atrocities that were committed in the name of
education have fortunately been stopped by education itself. I don't
think that either of us paid much attention to the lectures; the main
thing was to get out and go somewhere; yet I don't think any other later
good times were as breathlessly fascinating.

"Mother seldom went, the hermetically sealed, air-proof architecture of
the place not agreeing with her; so father, Eleanor, and I used to walk
over, crossing the head of Washington Square, until, as we passed St.
Mark's Church and reached the steps of the building, we often headed a
procession as sedate and serious as i