Ham, whose heartstrings and purse-strings were oddly intertwined, had stipulated that they were to occupy the old Durrett mansion; but when Nancy had made it “livable,” as she expressed it, he is said to have remarked that he might as well have built a new house and been done with it.  Not even old Nathaniel himself would have recognized his home when Nancy finished what she termed furnishing:  out went the horsehair, the hideous chandeliers, the stuffy books, the Recamier statuary, and an army of upholsterers, wood-workers, etc., from Boston and New York invaded the place.  The old mahogany doors were spared, but matched now by Chippendale and Sheraton; the new, polished floors were covered with Oriental rugs, the dreary Durrett pictures replaced by good canvases and tapestries.  Nancy had what amounted to a genius for interior effects, and she was the first to introduce among us the luxury that was to grow more and more prevalent as our wealth increased by leaps and bounds.  Only Nancy’s luxury, though lavish, was never vulgar, and her house when completed had rather marvellously the fine distinction of some old London mansion filled with the best that generations could contribute.  It left Mrs. Frederick Grierson—­whose residence on the Heights had hitherto been our “grandest”—­breathless with despair.

With characteristic audacity Nancy had chosen old Nathaniel’s sanctum for her particular salon, into which Ham himself did not dare to venture without invitation.  It was hung in Pompeiian red and had a little wrought-iron balcony projecting over the yard, now transformed by an expert into a garden.  When I had first entered this room after the metamorphosis had taken place I inquired after the tombstone mantel.

“Oh, I’ve pulled it up by the roots,” she said.

“Aren’t you afraid of ghosts?” I inquired.

“Do I look it?” she asked.  And I confessed that she didn’t.  Indeed, all ghosts were laid, nor was there about her the slightest evidence of mourning or regret.  One was forced to acknowledge her perfection in the part she had chosen as the arbitress of social honours.  The candidates were rapidly increasing; almost every month, it seemed, someone turned up with a fortune and the aspirations that go with it, and it was Mrs. Durrett who decided the delicate question of fitness.  With these, and with the world at large, her manner might best be described as difficult; and I was often amused at the way in which she contrived to keep them at arm’s length and make them uncomfortable.  With her intimates—­of whom there were few—­she was frank.

“I suppose you enjoy it,” I said to her once.

“Of course I enjoy it, or I shouldn’t do it,” she retorted.  “It isn’t the real thing, as I told you once.  But none of us gets the real thing.  It’s power....  Just as you enjoy what you’re doing—­sorting out the unfit.  It’s a game, it keeps us from brooding over things we can’t help.  And after all, when we have good appetites and are fairly happy, why should we complain?”