stood like the last remaining fortress against the city's invasion.
Sagging cornices and discolored walls had not dispelled the atmosphere
of contentment that enveloped the place, an effect heightened by the
wide front porch which ran straight across the face of it, like a
broad, complacent smile. Some old houses, like old gallants, bear an
unmistakable air of past prosperity, of past affairs. Romance has
trailed her garments near them and the fragrance lingers.

Thornwood, shabby and neglected, could still afford to drowse in the
sunshine and smile over the past. It remembered the time when its
hospitality was the boast of the countryside, when its stables held
the best string of horses in the State; when its smokehouse, now
groaning under a pile of lumber, sheltered shoulders of pork, and
sides of bacon, and long lines of juicy, sugar-cured hams; when the
cellar quartered battalions of cobwebby bottles that stood at
attention on the low hanging shelves. It was a house ripe with
experience and mellow with memories, a wise, old, sophisticated house,
that had had its day, and enjoyed it, and now, through with ambitions,
and through with striving, had settled down to a peaceful old age.

On this particular Sunday afternoon Colonel Bob Carsey, the third of
his name, sat on the porch in a weather-beaten mahogany rocker, making
himself a mint julep. He was a stout, elderly gentleman, and, like the
rocking chair, was weather-beaten, and of a slightly mahogany hue. His
features, having long ago given up the struggle against encroaching
flesh, were now merely slight indentures, and mild protuberances, with
the exception of the eyes which still blazed away defiantly, like
twinkling lights at the end of a passage. Across his feet with nose on
paws lay a dog, and about him was scattered a profusion of fishing
paraphernalia.