This
did not, however, as he was perfectly aware, prevent her feeling that
she had come too late for the heroic age of New England life, and
regarding Miss Birdseye as a battered, immemorial monument of it. Ransom
could share such an admiration as that, especially at this moment; he
had said to Verena, more than once, that he wished he might have met the
old lady in Carolina or Georgia before the war--shown her round among
the negroes and talked over New England ideas with her; there were a
good many he didn't care much about now, but at that time they would
have been tremendously refreshing. Miss Birdseye had given herself away
so lavishly all her life that it was rather odd there was anything left
of her for the supreme surrender. When he looked at Olive he saw that
she meant to ignore him; and during the few minutes he remained on the
spot his kinswoman never met his eye. She turned away, indeed, as soon
as Doctor Prance said, leaning over Miss Birdseye, "I have brought Mr.
Ransom to you. Don't you remember you asked for him?"
"I am very glad to see you again," Ransom remarked. "It was very good of
you to think of me." At the sound of his voice Olive rose and left her
place; she sank into a chair at the other end of the piazza, turning
round to rest her arms on the back and bury her head in them.
Miss Birdseye looked at the young man still more dimly than she had ever
done before. "I thought you were gone. You never came back.
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