decreed by Kubla Khan could have worn more glamour than the house of
Cousin Robert Breck.

It stood half a mile from the drowsy village, deep in its own grounds
amidst lawns splashed with shadows, with gravel paths edged--in
barbarous fashion, if you please with shells. There were flower beds of
equally barbarous design; and two iron deer, which, like the figures
on Keats's Grecian urn, were ever ready poised to flee,--and yet never
fled. For Cousin Robert was rich, as riches went in those days: not only
rich, but comfortable. Stretching behind the house were sweet meadows of
hay and red clover basking in the heat, orchards where the cows cropped
beneath the trees, arbours where purple clusters of Concords hung
beneath warm leaves: there were woods beyond, into which, under the
guidance of Willie Breck, I made adventurous excursions, and in the
autumn gathered hickories and walnuts. The house was a rambling, wooden
mansion painted grey, with red scroll-work on its porches and horsehair
furniture inside. Oh, the smell of its darkened interior on a midsummer
day! Like the flavour of that choicest of tropical fruits, the
mangosteen, it baffles analysis, and the nearest I can come to it is a
mixture of matting and corn-bread, with another element too subtle to
define.

The hospitality of that house! One would have thought we had arrived,
my mother and I, from the ends of the earth, such was the welcome we got
from Cousin Jenny, Cousin Robert's wife, from Mary and Helen with the
flaxen pig-tails, from Willie, whom I recall as permanently without
shoes or stockings. Met and embraced by Cousin Jenny at the station and
driven to the house in the squeaky surrey, the moment we arrived she and
my mother would put on the dressing-sacks I associated with hot weather,
and sit sewing all day long in rocking-chairs at the coolest end of the
piazza. The women of that day scorned lying down, except at night, and
as evening came on they donned starched dresses; I recall in particular
one my mother wore, with little vertical stripes of black and white, and
a full skirt. And how they talked, from the beginning of the visit until
the end! I have often since wondered where the topics came from.

It was not until nearly seven o'clock that the train arrived which
brought home my Cousin Robert. He was a big man; his features and even
his ample moustache gave a disconcerting impression of rugged integrity,
and I remember him chiefly in an alpac