down by the Baconses' and into The Court, whose
trees were planted by order of some lordly person, kin to the Aikens
who have been sitting under the shade of their greatness ever since,
and then we strolled by the Eppes house, for I wanted Father to see it.
It is the stateliest old place in town and its garden of old-fashioned
flowers makes one think the twentieth century is a mistake and ought
never to have been, but ordinarily I pass it quickly, as I don't care
for its owners. The house has perfect lines and the dearest little
panes of glass in its deep, wide windows; and inside it has big
fireplaces and beautifully carved woodwork and wonderful old furniture
and fearful old portraits, and I certainly wanted Father to see
everything in it, but I didn't expect him to do it, for the House of
Eppes doesn't admire me any more than I admire it--and then the
unexpected happened.

As we reached the gate we saw the whole bunch sitting in the wide, cool
hall--Sister reading aloud, Sister Edwina making tatting, and Miss Lily
Lou peeling a peach for Mother from a basket on the table beside her,
and I was going to pass by and just bow to Mother as pleasantly and
politely as I could (she was the only one who saw us), when to my
surprise she got up and ordered me to stop by a wave of her hand. I
stopped. She does not approve of me. She thinks it very indelicate in
me to accept the attentions of one whose engagement had so recently
been broken, and, while she will never recover from stupefaction that
Elizabeth should disagree with her son, she attributed that action on
Elizabeth's part to lack of sense and does not hesitate to say so, just
as she has not hesitated to say things about me that were not as
Christian as they might have been. She knew, however, what was
expected of Twickenham Town and that personal feelings were to be paid
no attention to where politeness was concerned, and with a sort of
scepter movement she beckoned to me and commanded us to come in. We
went.

It is a queer thing how nice disagreeable people can be when they want
to, and that morning the entire Eppes family (even Sister Edwina, who's
the limit) were so polite and pleasant that Father never would have
imagined how cocky and sniffy they usually are. I behaved as well as
they did, and when we came away I couldn't remember a thing I had said
that I shouldn't. We didn't stay but half an hour. I wouldn't have
held out a whole hour, and neither wo