"Fierce and bitter was the rivalry between the lovers. But the young

girl returned the love of John Berners, and married him, and became your

ancestress, as you know, Sybil.

"And from that time to the time of the extinction of the American branch

of the Dubarry family, a feud, as fierce and bitter, if not as warlike,

as any that ever raged between rival barons of the middle ages,

prevailed between the Berners and the Dubarrys.

"I come now to the period just before the breaking out of the Old French

War, when the first rude stone lodges in these valleys had given place

to handsome and spacious manor houses, and when the then proprietor of

the Dubarry estate had erected a magnificent dwelling on the site of his

first rough cottage. He called the mansion the Chateau Dubarry, a name

which the country people quickly changed into Shut-up Dubarry.

"The last name was not inappropriate, for a more morose, solitary, and

misanthropical man never lived than Henry Dubarry, the builder of that

house. He neither visited nor received visits, but remained selfishly

'shut-up' in the paradise of art and letters that he had created within

his dwelling.

"He had a wife, a son, and two daughters, all of whom suffered more or

less from this isolation from their fellow-beings. So it was a great

relief to the son when he was sent, first to the William and Mary

College of Williamsburg for five years, and afterwards to Oxford for

five more.

"After the departure of the son and brother, the mother and sisters

suffered more and more seriously from the gloom and horror of their

isolation, and in the course of years utterly succumbed to it. First the

mother died, then the elder sister; and then the younger sister, left

alone with her recluse father in that awful house, became a maniac.

"Under these circumstances, the father wrote to his son to come home.

But selfishness, not love, ruled that young man, as it had ruled his

fathers. He had graduated with honors, and won a 'fellowship' at the

University, and he was about to start for the fashionable European tour.

He wrote home to this effect, and went on his farther way.

"He remained abroad until summoned home by two events--the deaths of his

father and sister, and the necessity of raising money for himself.

"He came home, but not alone. He brought with him a gipsy girl of

singular beauty, who seemed to be passionately attached to him, and whom

he loved as much as it was in his selfish nature to love anything.

"He placed her at the head of his household, and his simple servants

obeyed her as their mistress; and his sociable neighbors, willing to

forgive old rebuffs, called upon the young pair.




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