LADY BALTIMORE



I: A Word about My Aunt


Like Adam, our first conspicuous ancestor, I must begin, and lay the
blame upon a woman; I am glad to recognize that I differ from the father
of my sex in no important particular, being as manlike as most of his
sons. Therefore it is the woman, my Aunt Carola, who must bear the whole
reproach of the folly which I shall forthwith confess to you, since she
it was who put it into my head; and, as it was only to make Eve happy
that her husband ever consented to eat the disastrous apple, so I, save
to please my relative, had never aspired to become a Selected Salic
Scion. I rejoice now that I did so, that I yielded to her temptation.
Ours is a wide country, and most of us know but our own corner of it,
while, thanks to my Aunt, I have been able to add another corner. This,
among many other enlightenments of navel and education, do I owe her; she
stands on the threshold of all that is to come; therefore I were lacking in
deference did I pass her and her Scions by without due mention,--employing
no English but such as fits a theme so stately. Although she never left
the threshold, nor went to Kings Port with me, nor saw the boy, or the
girl, or any part of what befell them, she knew quite well who the boy
was. When I wrote her about him, she remembered one of his grandmothers
whom she had visited during her own girlhood, long before the war, both
in Kings Port and at the family plantation; and this old memory led her