Project Gutenberg's "George Washington's" Last Duel, by Thomas Nelson Page

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Title: "George Washington's" Last Duel
1891

Author: Thomas Nelson Page

Release Date: October 12, 2007 [EBook #23013]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "GEORGE WASHINGTON'S" LAST DUEL ***

Produced by David Widger

"GEORGE WASHINGTON'S" LAST DUEL.

By Thomas Nelson Page

1891

I.

Of all the places in the county "The Towers" was the favorite with the
young people. There even before Margaret was installed the Major kept
open house with his major domo and factotum "George Washington"; and
when Margaret came from school, of course it was popular. Only one class
of persons was excluded.

There were few people in the county who did not know of the Major's
antipathy to "old women," as he called them. Years no more entered into
his definition of this class than celibacy did into his idea of an "old
bachelor." The state of single blessedness continued in the female
sex beyond the bloom of youth was in his eyes the sole basis of
this unpardonable condition. He made certain concessions to the few
individuals among his neighbors who had remained in the state of
spinsterhood, because, as he declared, neighborliness was a greater
virtue than consistency; but he drew the line at these few, and it was
his boast that no old woman had ever been able to get into his Eden.
"One of them," he used to say, "would close paradise just as readily now
as Eve did six thousand years ago." Thus, although as Margaret grew
up she had any other friends she desired to visit her as often as she
chose, her wish being the supreme law at Rock Towers, she had never even
thought of inviting one of the class against whom her uncle's ruddy face
was so steadfastly set. The first time it ever occurred to her to invite
any one among the proscribed was when she asked Rose Endicott to pay
her a visit. Rose, she knew, was living with her old aunt, Miss Jemima
Bridges, whom she had once met in R-----, and she had some apprehension
that in Miss Jemima's opinion, the condition of the South was so much
like that of the Sandwich Islands th