Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1885-06-26
CHAPTER III.

AN ARGUMENT AND AN ARRIVAL.
On the night when the down train carried
the golden-headed child to BIacktown, the
Talberts had dined at home without COM
pany. The two men were still at the table,
slipping their claret and smoking cigarettes.
They were neither great drinking men nor
great smoking men. If such habits are sins,
the Talberts might have gone on as they were
going for many years and then made atone
ment very easily. 1t is needless to state that
the two brothers were faultlessly dressed in
the evening garb of the nineteenth century
1t will also be guessed that the dinner table
was most tastefully laid out. In spite of the
season being midwinter, it was gay with
flowers. Quaint antique silver spoons and
forks did the duty which is exacted from the
forid kings pattern and the ugly fiddle pat
tern denominations of our day. The napery
was of the ,whitest and finest description
the polish on the glass such as to make the
most careful housewife or conscientious SER
want wonder and envy. There is a tale con-
nected with the glass.
Once upon time lady who was dining at
Lakewood House asked her hosts, with par
donable curiosity, how they were able to in
duce their servants to send the decanters and
wine glasses to the table in such glorious
state of refulgency. Horace Talbert smiled,
and answered with exquisite simplicity:
eve should never think of trusting our
glass to the hands of servants. My brother
and I see to it ourselves"
Thereupon the lady, who had manageable
sisters, and was no doubt keenly alive to the
fact that her hosts were eligible bachelors,
said: "It was very sweet Of them to take so
much trouble" but her husband, who heard
tbo u1ostiou and tho ancyUnr burct into At
of uncomfortable laughter. His was low,
coarse commonplace mind, utterly unable to
divest the ideal from the material To such
groveling nature the picture of these two
six-feet brawny men washing and rubbing
their rare and costly glass seemed intensely
comical.
The Talberts showed no signs of annoy
ance; they even smiled gravely in response to
his vulgar mirth; but Lakewood House knew
that person no more.
But the wretch took his revenge after the
manner of his kind. Unlucl1ily, in spite of
his faults, his position in the county was not
to be despised, and more unluckily he pos
sessed certain amount of humor of the low
class. He was brutal enough to nickname
our friends the 'Tabbies," and, appropriate
or not, the name chung to them, and will
cling for ever and ever. This is but another
proof of how careful man should be in the
selection of his friends
Although tonight the glass was as radiant
as ever, there was at present no one to admire
it save it's owners and caretakers. By virtue
of his year of seniority, Horace Talbert sat
at the head of the table. Herbert was at his
right hand. The two brothers were strangely
alike both in figure and face. They were
brown-haired men, with long, straight noses,
calm, serious eyes, rather arched eyebrows,
and average foreheads. Each wore we'll
kept beard and mustache the beard clipped
close, and terminating in point at the chin
"a fashion which suited their long, oval faces
remarkably well, and, perhaps, added kind
of old-world courtliness to their general ap-
pearance. Their looks may be summed up
by saying that the Talberts were men who
one felt ought to possess picture gallery of
distinguished ancestors. The absence of such
a desirable possession seemed heartless
freak of nature.
The room in which the brothers were sitting
was furnished with bold mixture of modern
and antique Where comfort and utility were
the first consideration, the modern prevailed;
where ornament or decoration had to be sup
piled, the antique, often the grotesque antique,
was called into requisition On the high,
carved mentelpiece stood Oriental bronze
vases with bideous dragons creeping round
them, and gaping, grinning kylins, who
looked mockingly and fearlessly at the fierce
metal monsters. They knew-old china
figures know more than people suspect-that
the dragons were welded to their vases more
irrefragibly than Prometheus to his rock.
Here and there was plate of rich-colored
doissonne enamel, piece of Nankn china,
specimen of old brass work, a bracket of real
old carved oak, an antique lamp, or some
other article dear to the collector. Some half
dozen medium-sized but valuable paintings
hung upon the walls The floor was covered
by sober-hued Persian carpet, and of course
roaring fire filled the CRATE.
The Talberts looked very grave-as grave
and solemn as Roman fathers in high debate.
They were, indeed, discussing a weighty mat
ter After an interval Of silence, Herbert
rose and walked to his brothers side. The
two looked critically down the table. They
went to the bottom and looked up the table.
They went to the sides and looked across the
table; they even sent glances diagonally from
corner to corner.
''It is certainly great improvement" said
Horace, with quiet triumph. .a.s.
~ NV IA