e they passed their days in a silence so
dignified that when his verbs and nominatives seemed not to agree, you
accused your own hearing. He was correctly dressed, as an elderly man
should be, in the yesterday of the fashions, and he wore with
impressiveness a silk hat whenever such a hat could be worn. A pair of
drab cloth gaiters did much to identify him with an old school of
gentlemen, not very definite in time or place. He had a full gray beard
cut close, and he was in the habit of pursing his mouth a great deal. But
he meant nothing by it, and his wife meant nothing by her frowning. They
had no wish to subdue or overawe any one, or to pass for persons of
social distinction. They really did not know what society was, and they
were rather afraid of it than otherwise as they caught sight of it in
their journeys and sojourns. They led a life of public seclusion, and
dwelling forever amidst crowds, they were all in all to each other, and
nothing to the rest of the world, just as they had been when they resided
(as they would have said) on Pinckney street. In their own house they had
never entertained, though they sometimes had company, in the style of the
country town where Mrs. Lander grew up. As soon as she was released to
the grandeur of hotel life, she expanded to the full measure of its
responsibilities and privileges, but still without seeking to make it the
basis of approach to society. Among the people who surrounded her, she
had not so much acquaintance as her husband even, who talked so little
that he needed none. She sometimes envied his ease in getting on with
people when he chose; and his boldness in speaking to fellow guests and
fellow travellers, if he really wanted anything. She wanted something of
them all the time, she wanted their conversation and their companionship;
but in her ignorance of the social arts she was thrown mainly upon the
compassion of the chambermaids. She kept these talking as long as she
could detain them in her rooms; and often fed them candy (which she ate
herself with childish greed) to bribe them to further delays. If she was
staying some days in a hotel, she sent for the house-keeper, and made all
she could of her as a listener, and as soon as she settled herself for a
week, she asked who was the best doctor in the place. With doctors she
had no reserves, and she poured out upon them the history of her diseases
and symptoms in an inexhaustible flow of statement, conjecture and
mi