“My high spirits won’t be above making you a soothing cup of coffee just as soon as that ancient African returns.  In the meantime, let’s look around us.”

People had forests to draw from when they built rooms like those in Hynds House.  There were eight of them on the first floor.  On one side the two drawing-rooms, the library, and behind that a room evidently used for an office.  We didn’t know it then, of course, but that library was treasure trove.  Almost every book and pamphlet covering the early American settlements, that is of any value at all, is in Hynds House library; we have some pamphlets that even the British Museum lacks.

The rooms had enough furniture to stock half a dozen antique-shops, all of it in a shocking state, the brocades in tatters, the carvings caked with dust.  You couldn’t see yourself in the tarnished mirrors, the portraits were black with dirt, and most of the prints were badly stained.  Alicia swooped upon a pair of china dogs with mauve eyes and black spots and sloppy red tongues, on a what-not in a corner.  She said she had been aching for a china dog ever since she was born.

“Oh, Sophy!” cried she, dancing, “wasn’t it heavenly of that old soul to die and leave you two whole china dogs!  I wouldn’t want sure-enough dogs that looked like these, but as china dogs they’re perfect!  And cast your eyes about you, Sophy!  Have you ever in all your life seen a house that needed so much done to it as this house does?

“’If seven maids with seven mops,
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose,’ the Walrus said,
‘That that would make it clear?’
‘I doubt it,’ said the Carpenter,
‘And—­’

“Sophy!  I shall clean some of these windows myself.  Did you know that Queen Victoria, when she was a child, had the same virtuous inclination?  Well, she had, and you see how she turned out!”

“I don’t believe it!”

“Don’t be skeptical!—­Look at that pink mustache-cup over there on that little table!  Who do you suppose had a mustache and drank out of that cup?  It couldn’t have been Sophronisba herself? I insist that it was a black-mustached Confederate with a red sash around his waist.  I adore Confederates!  They’re the most glamorous, romantic figures in American history.  I wish a black mustache went along with the cup and the house; don’t you?  It would make things so much more interesting!” And she began to sing, at the top of her voice, in the sad and faded room that hadn’t heard a singing voice these many, many years: 

“‘Arrah, Missis McGraw,’ the Captain said,
’Will ye make a sojer av your son Ted? 
Wid a g-r-rand mus-tache, an’ a three-cocked hat,
Wisha, Missis McGraw, wouldn’t you like that!
You like that—­tooroo looroo loo!
Wisha, Missis McGraw, wouldn’t you like that!’”

If Great-Aunt Sophronisba’s ghost, and the scandalized ghosts of all the haughy Hyndses ever intended to walk, now was the accepted time!  And as if that graceless ballad were the signal for something to happen, upon the hall window-shutter sounded three loud, imperative knocks.