Behind Sylvia stalked her cold and haughty husband, and behind him tripped the wonderful nursemaid, with her wonderful blue streamers, and her wonderful bundle of ruffles and lace.  All the huge family had to fall upon Sylvia and kiss and embrace her rapturously, and shake the hand of the cold and haughty husband, and peer into the wonderful bundle, and go into ecstasies over its contents.  Rarely, indeed, did the great ones of this earth condescend to spread so much of their emotional life before the public gaze; and was it any wonder that the town crowded about, and the proprieties were temporarily repealed?

It had never been published, but it was generally known throughout the State that Sylvia’s child was blind, and it was whispered that this portended something strange and awful.  So there hung about the young mother and the precious bundle an atmosphere of mystery and melancholy.  How had she taken her misfortune?  How had she taken all the great events that had befallen her—­her progress through the courts and camps of Europe?  Would she still condescend to know her fellow-townsmen?  Many were the hearts that beat high as she bestowed her largess of smiles and friendly words.  There were even humble old negroes who went off enraptured to tell the town that “Mi’ Sylvia” had actually shaken hands with them.  There was almost a cheer from the crowd as the string of automobiles set out for Castleman Hall.

12.  There was a grand banquet that evening, at which the turkeys entered the family.  Not in years had there been so many people crowded into the big dining-room, nor so many servants treading upon each other’s toes in the kitchen.

Such a din of chatter and laughter!  Sylvia was her old radiant self, and her husband was quite evidently charmed by the patriarchal scene.  He was affable, really genial, and won the hearts of everybody; he told the good major, amid a hush which almost turned his words into a speech, that he was able to understand how they of the South loved their own section so passionately; there was about the life an intangible something—­a spell, an elevation of spirit, which set it quite apart by itself.  And since this was the thing which they of the South most delighted to believe concerning themselves, they listened enraptured, and set the speaker apart as a rare and discerning spirit.

Afterwards came the voice of Sylvia:  “You must beware of Douglas, Papa; he is an inveterate flatterer.”  She laughed as she said it; and of those present it was Aunt Varina alone who caught the ominous note, and saw the bitter curl of her lips as she spoke.  Aunt Varina and her niece were the only persons there who knew Douglas van Tuiver well enough to appreciate the irony of the term “inveterate flatterer.”