one of the small villages
that are scattered along the shore of Connecticut. Why they came was
not clearly understood, neither was it at all to be gathered from their
way of life or business. Business properly they had none; and their way
of life seemed one of placid contentment and unenterprising domestic
pleasure. The head of the family was a retired army officer, now past
the prime of his years; tall, thin, grey, and grave; but a gentleman
through and through. Everybody liked Colonel Gainsborough, although
nobody could account for a man of his age leading what seemed such a
profitless life. He was doing really nothing; staying at home with his
wife and his books. Why had he come to Connecticut at all? If he lived
for pleasure, surely his own country would have been a better place to
seek it. Nobody could solve this riddle. That Colonel Gainsborough had
anything to be ashamed of, or anything to be afraid of, entered
nobody's head for a moment. Fear or shame were unknown to that grave,
calm, refined face. The whisper got about, how, it is impossible to
say, that his leaving home had been occasioned by a disagreement with
his relations. It might be so. No one could ask him, and the colonel
never volunteered to still curiosity on the subject.

The family was small. Only a wife and one little girl came with the
colonel to America; and they were attended by only two old retainers, a
man and a woman. They hired no other servants after their arrival,
which, however, struck nobody as an admission of scantness of means.
According to the views and habits of the countryside, two people were
quite enough to look after three; the man outside and the woman inside
the house. Christopher Bounder took care of the garden and the cow, and
cut and made the hay from one or two little fields. And Mrs. Barker,
his sister, was a very capable woman indeed, and quite equal to the
combined duties of housekeeper, cook, lady's maid, and housemaid, which
she fulfilled to everybody's satisfaction, including her own. However,
after two or three years in Seaforth these duties were somewhat
lessened; the duties of Mrs. Barker's hands, that is, for her head had
more to do. Mrs. Gainsborough, who had been delicate and failing for
some time, at last died, leaving an almost inconsolable husband and
daughter behind her. I might with truth say quite inconsolable; for at
the time I speak of, a year later than Mrs. Gainsborough's death,
certainly comfort had