We knew that we were considered Miss Brandon’s representatives in Deephaven society, and this was no slight responsibility, as she had received much honor and respect.  We heard again and again what a loss she had been to the town, and we tried that summer to do nothing to lessen the family reputation, and to give pleasure as well as take it, though we were singularly persistent in our pursuit of a good time.  I grew much interested in what I heard of Miss Brandon, and it seems to me that it is a great privilege to have an elderly person in one’s neighborhood, in town or country, who is proud, and conservative, and who lives in stately fashion; who is intolerant of sham and of useless novelties, and clings to the old ways of living and behaving as if it were part of her religion.  There is something immensely respectable about the gentlewomen of the old school.  They ignore all bustle and flashiness, and the conceit of the younger people, who act as if at last it had been time for them to appear and manage this world as it ought to have been managed before.  Their position in modern society is much like that of the King’s Chapel in its busy street in Boston.  It perhaps might not have been easy to approach Miss Brandon, but I am sure that if I had visited in Deephaven during her lifetime I should have been very proud if I had been asked to take tea at her house, and should have liked to speak afterward of my acquaintance with her.  It would have been impossible not to pay her great deference; it is a pleasure to think that she must have found this world a most polite world, and have had the highest opinion of its good manners. Noblesse oblige:  that is true in more ways than one!

I cannot help wondering if those of us who will be left by and by to represent our own generation will seem to have such superior elegance of behavior; if we shall receive so much respect and be so much valued.  It is hard to imagine it.  We know that the world gains new refinements and a better culture; but to us there never will be such imposing ladies and gentlemen as these who belong to the old school.

The morning after we reached Deephaven we were busy up stairs, and there was a determined blow at the knocker of the front door.  I went down to see who was there, and had the pleasure of receiving our first caller.  She was a prim little old woman who looked pleased and expectant, who wore a neat cap and front, and whose eyes were as bright as black beads.  She wore no bonnet, and had thrown a little three-cornered shawl, with palm-leaf figures, over her shoulders; and it was evident that she was a near neighbor.  She was very short and straight and thin, and so quick that she darted like a pickerel when she moved about.  It occurred to me at once that she was a very capable person, and had “faculty,” and, dear me, how fast she talked!  She hesitated a moment when she saw me, and dropped a fragment of a courtesy.  “Miss Lan’k’ster?” said she, doubtfully.