In due time Mrs. Rossiter-Browne and her daughter, Augusta, came to the "George," with their maid, and took possession of the best rooms, and scattered shillings and half-crowns with a lavishness which made every servant their slave. Of course Daisy called, bearing Bessie's compliments and regrets, and then Mrs. Browne and Augusta came to Stoneleigh in the finest turn-out which the hotel could boast, for though the distance was short, Mrs. Browne never walked when she could ride, and on this occasion she was out for a drive, "to see the elephant of Bangor, trunk and all, for she was bound nothing should escape her which she ought to see, if she died for it, and she guessed she should before she got round home, as she was completely tuckered out with sight-seeing," she said, as she sank pantingly into an easy-chair in the large cool room, which Daisy had made very bright and attractive with fresh muslin curtains, a rug, a table-spread, and some tidies brought from Nice.
This room, which was only used in summer, had on the floor a heavy Axminster, which had done service for forty years at least, but still showed what it had been, and spoke of the former grandeur of the place, as did the massive and uncomfortable chairs of solid mahogany, the old pier-glass against the wall, and the queerly shaped sofa, on which Daisy had thrown a bright striped shawl, which changed its aspect wonderfully. She wished to make a good impression upon her American friend, and she succeeded beyond her most sanguine hopes. With her ideas of the greatness and importance of the McPhersons, who, if poor, were aristocrats, Mrs. Browne was prepared to see every thing couleur de rose, and the old wainscoted room and quaint furniture delighted her more even than the pretty little devices with which Daisy had thought to make the room more modern and heighten the effect.
"If there's anything I dote on particularly, it's on ancestry halls," Mrs. Rossiter-Browne said, as she looked admiringly around her. "Now them chairs, which a Yankee would hide in the garret, speak of a past and tell you've been somebody a good while. I'd give the world for such an old place as this at home; but, my land! we are that new in America that the starch fairly rattles as we walk. We are only a hundred years old, you know; had our centennial two or three years ago. That was a big show, I tell you; most as good as Europe, and better in some respects, for I could be wheeled in a chair and see things comfortable, while over here, my land! my legs is most broke off, and I tell Gusty I'll have to get a new pair if I stay much longer. Think of me climbing up Pisa, and St. Peter's, and all the Campyniles in the country, and that brass thing in Munich to boot, where I thought I should of sweltered, and all to say you've been there. It's a park of nonsense, I tell 'em, though I s'pose it does cultivate you, and that reconciles me to it."