Litchfield enquirer., 1876-03-30
Form Harper's Magazine.
 OLD cARDlSToM.


 Old Gardiston was a manor house down in the rice lands, six miles from a South kern sea-po.t It had been called Old Gardiston for sixty or seventy years. which showed that it must have belonged
 to colonial days, since no age npder that l of century could have earned for it that
 honorabie title in g. .ineighborhood whore 1 the Declaration of Independence was still
 considered an event of comparatively modern times. The war was over. and
 the mistress of the house. Miss Marga-
 retta Gardiston, lay buried in St., Marks
 church had not only been closed; the very
 road to its low stone doorway was over
 gro an, and second forest had grown up
 around it; but the church-yard was still
 open to those of the dead who had right 1 there; and certainly Miss Margaretta had this right, seeing that father, grandfather,
 and greatgrandfather all lay buried there. 1 and their memorial tablets, quaintly en-
 biszoned, form principal pa, of the deco
 rations of the ancient little sanctuary in l the Wilderness. There was no one left at
 Old Ga diston now save Cousin Copeland
 and Gardis Duke, girl of seventeen
 years, Miss Margaretta's niece and heir.
 Poor iittle' Gardis, having been born girl when she should have been boy, was
 christeped with the family name-a prac-
 tice not uncommon in some parts of the South, where English customs of two ceR-
 turies ago still retain their hold with sin gular tenacity; but the three syllables
 were soon abbreviated to two for common use, and the child grew up with the quaint name of Gardis. Efs'T'al @ss.f
 They were at breakfast now, the two re-
 naining. members of the family, in the marble hoored dining g-room.. The lattic- ed windows were open; birds were sing ing outside, and roses blooming; a flood of sunshine lit up every corner of the apartment, showing its massive Chinese Vases. it's carved ivory ornaments, its hanging lamp of curious shape, and it's spindIe-legged sideboard, covered with darkcolored plates and platters ornament ed with dark blue dragons going out to walk, and crocodiles circ1ing around fan tastically roofed temples, as though they were waiting for the worshipers to come out in order to make 8 meal of them. But in spite of these accessoi ies the poor old room was but a forlorn place; the marble flooring was sunken and defaeed, portions were broken into very traps for unwary feet, and its ancient enemy, the penetrat- ing dampness of the South, had finally conquered the last resisting mosaic, and climbed the walls, showing in blue and yellow streaks on the old-fashioned mouldings. There had been no fire in the tiled fire place for many years: Miss Margaretta did not approve of fires, and wood was costly: this last reason, hovey- CT, was never mentioned; and Gardis had l grown into girl of sixteen before she knew the comfort of the sparkling little fires that shine on the hearths morning and evening during the short winters in well-appointed Southern homes, At that ! time she had spent a few days in the city with some family friends who had come out of the war with less improverishment than their neighbors. Miss Margaretta did not approve of them exactly-it was understood that the Southerners of -four class" were .'impoyerished;' she did not refuse tie cordial invitation insoto. but, she sent for Gardis sooner than was ex- pected, and set about carefully removing the girls mind u any wrong ideas that might have made a lodgment there. And Cards, warmly loving her aunt, and im- birth, immediately cast from her the bright little comforts she met in the city as plebeian. and going up stairs to the old drawing-room, dusted the relics enshrined there with new reverence for them, glo- rifying herself in their undoubted antiq- l uiiy. Fires indeed Certainly not.
 The break ~ table was spread with snoey damas yorn thin almost to gossa- alarming, the cups and plates belonged to the crocodile set, and the meagre repast | was at least daintly served. Cousin Cope land had his egg, and Gardis satisfied her young appetite with fish caught in the river behind the house by Pompey, and fair amount of Dinah corn bread. The two old slaves had refused to leave Gard iston House; emancipation was nothing to them. They had been trained all their lives by Miss Margaretta, and now that she was gone, they took pride in keeping the expenses of the table, as she had kept | them, reduced to as small a sum as pos sible, knowing better than poor Gardis herself knew the pitiful smallness of the | family income, derived solely from the rent of an old warehouse in the city. For the war had nat impoverished Gardiston | House; it was impoverished long before. 1 Acre by acre the land had gone, until mo- thing was left save . small corn field and 1 the flower garden; piece by piece the sill yer had vanished, until nothing was left l save three tea spoons, three tablespoons. and four forks. The old warehouse had brought in little rent during those four long years, and they had fared hardly at Gardiston. Still, in their .lsolated situa- tion away from the main roads, their we'll known poverty safeguard, they had not so much as heard drum or seen uni form, blue or gray, and this was rare and fortunate exemption in those troub- lots times; and when the war was at last ended, Miss Margaretta found herself no poorer than she was before, with this great advantage added, that now every body was poor, and, indeed, it was despi- cable to be any tmng else. She bloomed l out into a new cheerfulness under this congenial state of things, and even invited one or two contemporaries still remaining on the old plantations in the neighborhood to spend several days at Gardiston. Two ancient danes accepted the invitation, and the state the three kept together in the old drawing room under the family portraits, the sweep of their narrow-skirt- ed, old fashioned silk gowns on the inlaid staircase when they went down to dinner, the supreme unconsciousuess of the Sreak- neck condition of the marble flooring and the mould-streaked walls, the airy way in which they drank their tea out of the croe codiIe cups, and told little stories of fifty years before, filled Gardis with admiring respect. She sat. as it were, in the shad- sow of their greatness. and obediently ate only of those dishes that required a fork, since the three spoons were. of course, in use. During this memorable visit Cousin Copeland was always .''engaged in, his studyaat meal, l,times; but in the evening he appeared, radiant. and then the four played ahist together on the-C Chinese table, and the ladies famed themselves with stately grace while Cousin Copeland dealt not only the cards, but compliments also both equally old-fashioned and we'll
 But within tbis iirst year of peacs Miss Margaretta had, died-an. old lady of .sev- enty-dye. but bright and strong .as q winter apple Gardis and Cousin Copeland, left alone, moved on in tue same way. it, yias as the only way. they knew Censils Cope land lived only in the past, Gardiegin, the