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Updated: May 17, 2025
Quite naturally, the point of view of the country-house people was different; more critical, if not less charitable. Though the social acceptance of the Gordons, as an ancient family, as friends of the Dabneys, and as land-holding neighbors was fairly complete, it still lacked somewhat of the class kinship which breeds leniency and the closed eye to the sins of its own household.
She jest set there with her old skinny arms folded on her breast like a major-general, and that old under lip of hers stuck out and her neck bowed, sayin' over and over agin that you girls were goin' to that boardin' school same ez the Dabneys and the Helms had always done.
The Dabneys and the Farleys made one party, and Japheth knew the steamer and the sailing date. "Party will sail by White Star Line Baltic, New York, to-morrow. New York address, Fifth Avenue Hotel.
It was no wonder the Dabneys had closed their house and had gone to Crestcliffe Inn to save Ardea the humiliation of having to meet Tom before she was safely married to Vincent Farley. It was what any self-respecting young woman would wish under like trying conditions.
But Thomas Jefferson's heart was full, and full hearts are soft. "You needn't run," he hazarded. "I reckon I ain't going to bite you. I don't feel much like biting anybody to-day." "You did bite me once, though," she said airily. "And you've never forgiven me for it," he asserted, in deepest self-pity. "Oh, yes, I have; the Dabneys always forgive but they never forget. And me, I am a Dabney."
The girl's ague fit of fear had passed, and she seemed less concerned about the equivocal situation than a girl should be; at least, this is the way Tom's thought was shaping itself. He tried to imagine Ardea in Nan's place, but the thing was baldly unimaginable. A daughter of the Dabneys would never run and cower and beg to be hidden at the possible cost of her good name.
But the Dabneys of Deer Trace this was the old name of the estate, and it obtains to this day among the Paradise Valley folk figure so largely in Thomas Jefferson's boyhood and youth as to be well-nigh elemental in these retrospective glimpses.
Randolphs, Carrs, Coles, Carters, Dabneys, Gordons, Meriwethers, and Minors all would wish to hurry away. Plantation, office, or tavern, there would be letters waiting, journals to read, men to meet, committees, clamour, and debate.
Underneath, however, ugly currents and sharp rocks were well known to have a potential existence and it was the mission of the Dabneys to see that no wind of provocation unduly stirred these depths. Worse even than these possibilities of violence, however, so far as every-day life was concerned, was the strain of obstinacy which belonged to the Thorpe temper.
Ardea's figure of speech was no figure. The palazzo-sharing invitation did die hard; and when Miss Farley's letters failed, Mr. Vincent Farley made a journey to Paris for the express purpose of persuading the Dabneys to reconsider. Miss Euphrasia was neutral. The Major was homesick for a sight of his native Southland, but for Ardea's sake he generously concealed the symptoms or thought he did.
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