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Dear tobacco, virgin land, and cheap negroes gave the several families in Virginia, for three generations, a showy, delusive prosperity, which produced a considerable number of dissolute, extravagant men, and educated a few to a high degree of knowledge and wisdom. Of these families, the Randolphs were the most numerous, and among the oldest, richest, and most influential.
The after-effect of her invasion of his office the night of the Randolphs' dinner and of his learning of the tremulous interest with which she had afterward followed the case he was then working on, had been very different from his first irritation and his first amusement.
So one evening, after keeping up the pretense through his solitary dinner and the cigar that followed it, that he meant presently to go up to his study and correct galley proofs on an enormous brief, he slipped out about nine o'clock, and walked around to the Randolphs' new house. This latest venture of Eleanor's had attracted a good deal of comment among her friends.
But she had managed to elude his inquiries, and though it had changed the demeanour of Sir Tom, and entirely done away with the careless good humour which had been so pleasant, still she felt herself now independent of the Randolphs, and had begun her life very cheerfully and with every promise of great enjoyment.
But Randolph saw himself a Henry of Navarre white plumes; a Richard of the Lion Heart crusades and red crosses; a Cyrano without the nose "These be cadets of Gascony " "You see, MacDonald," he said, flaming, "we Randolphs have always done it." "Done what?" "Fought. There's been a Randolph in every war over here, and before that in a long line of battles "
They had a grand christening, too; Grandfather Ball was there, and Colonel Bradford Custis, and the Lees, the Jeffersons, the Randolphs, the Slaughters yes, all the old families of Virginia were represented, and there was feasting and merry-making for three days! Such cheer prevailed, in fact, that even Miss Dorcas Culpeper, spinster, and Lawrence, the happy father, became completely reconciled.
Her name, he knew, as a Carrillo was enough to admit her to such homes as the Barton Randolphs. The words of her father "this is all that is left, what you see around you" came back to him. Could it possibly be that they were actually poor? Because it was late she insisted upon taking him to his home. "Sometime," he said as they parted, "I want you to meet my mother."
She had been in good looks to-night, she knew; hurt, humiliated, confronted with a crisis, she had rallied her powers just as she had done at the Randolphs' dinner. She had been aware of the color in her cheeks, the brightness in her eyes, the edge to her voice. Each of the two men had responded to the effect she produced.
"They are very proud," said his mother. "A wonderful people, born aristocrats. You don't remember those Randolphs with whom we travelled through England. They were with us at Hollingdean, Lord Northwell's place. You were too small at the time. There was a young girl, Eleanor Randolph, a beauty. I shall never forget the way she entered those English drawing-rooms.
"They are very proud," said his mother. "A wonderful people, born aristocrats. You don't remember those Randolphs with whom we travelled through England. They were with us at Hollingdean, Lord Northwell's place. You were too small at the time. There was a young girl, Eleanor Randolph, a beauty. I shall never forget the way she entered those English drawing-rooms.
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