Lafayette, and other high dignitaries, coming-of-age parties for the
young bloods--quite English in his tastes was the old gentleman--not to
mention many other extravagances which were still discussed by the
gossips of the day.

With the general's death--it had occurred some twenty years before--the
expected had happened. Not only was the pot nearly empty, but the
various drains which it had sustained had so undermined the family
rent-roll that an equally disastrous effect had been produced on the
mansion itself (one of the few pieces of property, by the way, that the
father had left to his only son and heir unencumbered, with the
exception of a suit in chancery from which nobody ever expected a
penny), the only dry spots in St. George's finances being the few ground
rents remaining from his grandmother's legacy and the little he could
pick up at the law.

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that certain changes and
deteriorations had taken place inside and out of the historic
building--changes which never in the slightest degree affected the
even-tempered St. George, who had retained his own private apartments
regardless of the rest of the house--but changes which, in all justice
to the irascible old spendthrift, would have lifted that gentleman out
of his grave could he have realized their effect and extent. What a
shock, for instance, would the most punctilious man of his time have
received when he found his front basement rented for a law office, to
say nothing of a disreputable tin sign nailed to a shutter--where in the
olden time he and his cronies had toasted their shins before blazing
logs, the toddies kept hot on the hearth! And what a row would he have
raised had he known that the rose-garden was entirely neglected and
given over to the dogs and their kennels; the library in the second