awkward, waddling walk.

She had a profusion of silvery-white hair, worn in fluffy curls about
her large pink face, soft brown eyes, and a full double chin that fell
over a round cameo brooch bearing the head of Minerva set in a plain
gold band. In winter she wore gowns of black Henrietta cloth, made with
plain bodices and full plaited skirts; in summer she wore the same
skirts with loosely fitting white linen sacques, trimmed in delicate
embroideries, with muslin ruffles falling over her plump hands. When she
came to the Hall she brought with her innumerable reminiscences of her
childhood, which she told in a musical voice with girlish laughter.

After his sister's arrival the general discontinued his fitful
overseering. He rose early and spent his long days sitting upon the
front porch, smoking an old briar pipe and reading the Richmond papers.
Occasionally he would ride at a jogging pace round the fields, giving
casual directions to the workers, but as his weight increased he found
it difficult to mount into the saddle, and, at last, desisted from the
attempt. He preferred to sit in peace in his cane rocking chair, looking
down the box walk into the twilight of the cedar avenue, or gazing
placidly beyond the aspens and the well-house to the streaked ribbons of
the ripening corn. It was said that he had never been the same man since
the death of his wife. Certainly he laughed as heartily and his jovial
face had taken a ruddier tint, but there was a superficiality in his
exuberant cheerfulness which told that it was not well rooted below the
surface. His jokes were as ready as ever, but he had fallen into an
absent-minded habit of repetition, and sometimes repeated the same
stories at breakfast and supper. He talked freely of his dead wife, he
even made ill-placed jests about his widowerhood, and he never failed to
kiss a pair of red lips when the chance offered; but, for all that, his