It was not the ornaments, wonderful as they were, upon the high mantel-piece—the pallid wax flowers under glass, the waving pampas plumes and pink-lined tropic shells dear to romance—no, not even the mysterious closed piano—it was those ghostly crayon portraits in their tarnished gilt frames that drew this little unrelated fragment of humanity with a fascination that she did not in the least understand. She only knew that to gaze upon their white, shrouded faces was to yearn for even the staring, pictured counterparts, even the chill, clustered gravestones of her own vanished forebears. Vanished, indeed, since not even a name or a memory remained to their wistful and solitary descendant!
And these Spellmans and Russells—these revered ancestors of her dear “Mother” Waring as of the thorny and unapproachable Miss Sophia—their by-gone greatness had been so impressed upon her by allusion and suggestion that in the secret world of her imagination it reached heroic proportions. So this child of two races, the one by birth, the other by associations quite as real and vital, well-nigh forgot the shadowy demi-gods of her people while she bowed at the shrine of the commonplace county Judge who was the greatest of all the Russells, and fancied a beauty as of the moon and stars in the conventional portraits of his wife and daughters, with their uncovered necks and pallid, simpering faces.
Only a few stolen moments of gazing, and Stella crossed the dark hall on noiseless feet—for even in the black-leather boxes of civilization she had contrived to keep her native lightness of step—and softly opened the dining-room door.
With its cheerful morning sunshine streaming over the chromoed walls and gayly-carpeted floor, and with the canary singing his prettiest in the south window, above the row of thrifty geraniums and begonias, this room was the strongest possible contrast to the gloomy one she had just left behind. Ah! and that very minute the wonderful bird came out of the clock on the mantel-piece and seven times called “Cuckoo!” while, as if in answer to the call, the door into the kitchen opened, letting in the heartsome odor of frying ham and eggs, and Mother Waring with the smoking coffee-pot.