Mrs. Belding's house was next to that of Mr. Farnham, and the
neighborly custom of Algonquin Avenue was to build no middle walls of
partition between adjoining lawns. A minute's walk, therefore, brought
the young man to the door of Mrs. Belding's cottage. She called it a
cottage, and so we have no excuse for calling it anything else, though
it was a big three-storied house, built of the soft creamy stone of the
Buffland quarries, and it owed its modest name to an impression in the
lady's mind that gothic gables and dormer windows were a necessary
adjunct of cottages. She was a happy woman, though she would have been
greatly surprised to hear herself so described. She had not been out of
mourning since she was a young girl. Her parents, as she sometimes
said, "had put her into black"; and several children had died in
infancy, one after the other, until at last her husband, Jairus
Belding, the famous bridge-builder, had perished of a malarial fever
caught in the swamps of the Wabash, and left her with one daughter and
a large tin box full of good securities. She never afterward altered
the style of her dress, and she took much comfort in feeling free from
all further allegiance to milliners. In fact, she had a nature which
was predisposed to comfort. She had been fond of her husband, but she
had been a little afraid of him, and, when she had wept her grief into
tranquillity, she felt a certain satisfaction in finding herself the
absolute mistress of her income and her bedroom. Her wealth made her
the object of matrimonial ambition once or twice, and she had
sufficient beauty to flatter herself that she was loved more for her
eyes than her money; but she refused her suitors with an indolent
good-nature that did not trouble itself with inquiries as to their
sincerity. "I have been married once, thank you, and that is enough";
this she said simply without sighing or tears. Perhaps the unlucky
aspirant might infer that her heart was buried in the grave of Jairus.