Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1885-06-26
CHAPTER II.
A FAMILY OF POSITION.

Be it remembered that Oakbury is not
Breakdown Many of its inhabitants are
greatly annoyed when they hear it called a
suburb of Blacktown. Oakbury is near the
large city, but not of it. Although the fact
cannot be ignored that the existence of the
many charming country houses which adorn
Oakbury is as much due to its contiguity to
the dirty thriving town as to its natural
beauties although certain proportion
of those desirable residences has been pur-
chased by Blacktown's successful traders, the
most aristocratic inhabitants of Oakbury look
with indifference on the good and evil for
tunes of the city. They, the aristocratic in
habitants, are useful to Blacktown, not
Blacktown to them. They are out of its dis
sessions and struggles; better still, beyond
the range of its taxation. They are of the
county, not the town. So they head their
letters sOakbury, Westshire; :" and, as a rule,
decline intimacy with any Blacktown trader
under the rank of banker or merchant prince.
Besides Lord Kelston's well known country
seat, there must be in the parish Of Oakbury
some 20 or Is gentlemen's residences. They
cannot be called estates, as the ground at
tached to each varies respectively from three
to fifty acres, but not few Of them might
lay claim to be described by that well-round-
ed phrase, dear to auctioneers and house
agents, 8" a country mansion, fit for the occu-
patton and requirements of family OF posi-
tion'' They are not new, speculative, jerry
built houses, but good, old-fashioned, solid
affairs. No painted and gilt ratings surround
them; thick boundary walls and fine old trees
hide them from the gaze of inquisitive holt
day folks As the country around is very
beautiful and richly timbered =; as the prevail
Onlyh11ru
straight from the sea, pure and uncontam-
mated as two of the best packs of hounds
In England meet within an easy distance;
and prejudice notwithstanding, as the con-
veniences offered by large city are SO close
at hand-it is no wonder that the rector of
Oakbury numbers many families of position
among his parishioners. If mine were fam
ily of position, it should most certainly oc-
cupy a pew in that fine, old square-towered
church.
After this description it will be easily be-
lieved that the Oakbury people are somewhat
exclusively the Oakbury people are meant
the inhabitants of the aforesaid twenty
houses; the manner of the villagers and other
small fry who constitute the residue of the
population need not be taken into account.
The Oakbury people proper are very particu-
lar as to with whom they associate, and the
most particular and exclusive of all are two
gentlemen named Talbert, the joint owners
and occupiers of Hazlewood House.
Their ultra -exclusiveness was but the nat
ural outcome of the position in which they
were placed The fact that their income was
derived from money made by their father in
timber, tobacco, soap, sugar, or some other
large industry of Blacktown-people have
already nearly forgotten which 1t was-must
be responsible for the care the Talberts were
bound to exercise before they made new
acquaintance.
Because, you see, in their opinion at least,
the faint of trade still chung to them. They
were but generation removed from the
actual buying, selling and chaffering. Meta
phorically speaking, their own fathers hands
had been hardened by the timber, stained by
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