at Liscom's. However that may have been, I
looked around at our humble little home, at the lounge which I had
covered myself, at the threadbare carpet on the sitting-room floor,
at the wallpaper which was put on the year before my husband died, at
the vases on the shelf, which had belonged to my mother, and I was
very thankful that I did not care for "extra things" or new furniture
and carpets enough to take boarders who made one feel as if one were
simply a colonist of their superior state, and the Republic was over
and gone.
II
WE BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH THEM
It was certainly rather unfortunate, as far as the social standing of
the Jamesons among us was concerned, that they brought Grandma Cobb
with them.
Everybody spoke of her as Grandma Cobb before she had been a week in
the village. Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson always called her Madam Cobb,
but that made no difference. People in our village had not been
accustomed to address old ladies as madam, and they did not take
kindly to it. Grandma Cobb was of a very sociable disposition, and
she soon developed the habit of dropping into the village houses at
all hours of the day and evening. She was an early riser, and all the
rest of her family slept late, and she probably found it lonesome.
She often made a call as early as eight o'clock in the morning, and
she came as late as ten o'clock in the evening. When she came in the
morning she talked, and when she came in the evening she sat in her
chair and nodded. She often kept the whole family up, and it was less
exasperating when she came in the morning, though it was unfortunate
for the Jamesons.
If a bulletin devoted to the biography of the Jameson family had been
posted every week on the wall of the town house it could have been no
more explicit than was Grandma Cobb. Whether we would or not we soon
knew all about them; the knowledge was fairly forced upon us. We knew
that Mr. H. Boardman Jameson had been very wealthy, but had lost most
of his money the year before through the failure of a bank. We knew
that his wealth had all been inherited, and that he would never have
been, in Grandma Cobb's opinion, capable of earning it himself. We
knew that he had obtained, through the influence of friends, a
position in the custom-house, and we knew the precise amount of his
salary. We knew that the Jamesons had been obliged to give up their
palatial apartments in New York and take a humble flat in a less
fashionabl
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