MR. & MRS. SÊN |
By LOUISE JORDAN MILN |
Author of |
A. L. BURT COMPANY |
Copyright, 1923, by
Fredrick A. Stokes Company
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
TO
MALCOLM MURREE MILN
FROM
HIS MOTHER
MR. AND MRS. SÊN
CHAPTER I
In this day of kaleidoscopic changes, of brand-newultra “smartness,” of emancipations so tremendous,so upheaving, so incalculably far-reaching that to somethey almost seem to forecast the end of all things, stillthere are old bulwarks of customs, of character, of individualitiesand of life itself that neither change nor arechanged. The Townsends of Virginia are today justwhat they were long before 1776.
There is only one of them left—Miss Julia—but sheis they—the Townsends of Virginia; gracious, unapproachable,deft in a small, delicate way with her harpsichord,accomplished at her jellies, proud of her naperies,tyrannous and over-indulgent to her darkies, a fine judgeof horseflesh, sure of herself, doubtful of you—unlessyour forebears of the same “first-families” caste as hers,had been born, had wived and begotten and borne, ashers invariably had, in Virginia—a stanch Episcopalian,refined to the nth degree, intolerant, sentimental—buttoo proud, and of too good form, to own or toshow it—exclusive, generous—except of her acquaintanceand in her opinions—a writer of feeble verses,brilliant along her own selected and approved lines, dulland ill-informed on all others, autocratic and secretlysupersensitive, a gourmet who ate very little, an expertjudge of good wines who rarely drank them—buttermilkwas her one creature weakness—charitable (although shewas