THE GOVERNORS




BOOK I



CHAPTER I


MR. PHINEAS DUGE

Virginia, when she had torn herself away from the bosom of her sorrowing
but excited family, and boarded the car which passed only once a day
through the tiny village in Massachusetts, where all her life had been
spent, had felt herself, notwithstanding her nineteen years, a person of
consequence and dignity. Virginia, when four hours later she followed a
tall footman in wonderful livery through a stately suite of reception
rooms in one of the finest of Fifth Avenue mansions, felt herself
suddenly a very insignificant person. The roar and bustle of New York
were still in her ears. Bewildered as she had been by this first contact
with all the distracting influences of a great city, she was even more
distraught by the wonder and magnificence of these, her more immediate
surroundings. She, who had lived all her life in a simple farmhouse,
where every one worked, and a single servant was regarded as a luxury,
found herself suddenly in the palace of a millionaire, a palace made
perfect by the despoilment of more than one of the most ancient homes
in Europe.