She had been called by an uncountable number of housemaids and footmen "the little Madam"--the most sarcastic term of opprobrium contained in their dictionary.A leader of New York society, she had run charitable institutions and new movements with the same precision and efficiency that she had used in her houses.Every hour of her day had been filled.Not one moment had been wasted or frittered away.Her dinner parties had been famous, and she had had a spoke in the wheels of politics.Her witty sayings had been passed from mouth to mouth.Her little flirtations with prominent men and the ambitious tyros who had been drawn to her salon had given rise to much gossip.Not by any means a beauty, her pretty face and tiptilted nose, her perennial cheerfulness, birdlike vivacity and gift of repartee had made her the center of attraction for years.
But she, like Cumberland Ludlow, had refused to grow old gracefully and with resignation.She had put up an equally determined fight against age, and it was only when the remorseless calendar proved her to be sixty-five that she resigned from the struggle, washed the dye out of her hair and the make-up from her face and retired to that old house.Not even then, however, did she resign from all activity and remain contented to sit with her hands in her lap and prepare herself for the next world.This one still held a certain amount of joy, and she concentrated all the vitality that remained with her to the perfect running of her house.At eleven o'clock every morning the tap of her stick on the polished floors was the signal of her arrival, and if every man and woman of the menage was not actively at work, she knew the reason why.Her tongue was still as sharp as the blade of a razor, and for sloppiness she had no mercy.Careless maids trembled before her tirades, and strong men shook in their shoes under her biting phrases.At seventy, with her snowy hair, little face that had gone into as many lines as a dried pippin, bent, fragile body and tiny hands twisted by rheumatism, she looked like one of the old women in a Grimm's fairy tale who frightened children and scared animals and turned giants into cowards.
She drew up in front of the frustrated girl, stretched out her white hand lined with blue veins and began to tap her on the shoulder--announcing in that irritating manner that she had a complaint to make.
"My dear," she said, "when you write letters to your little friends or your sentimental mother, bear in mind that the place for ink is on the note paper and not on the carpet.""Yes, Grandmother."
"Try to remember also that if you put your hand behind a candle you can blow it out without scattering hot grease on the wall paper.""Yes, Grandmother"
"There is one other thing, if I may have your patience.You are not required to be a Columbus to discover that there is a basket for soiled linen in your bedroom.It is a large one and eager to fulfill its function.The floor of your clothes closet is intended for your shoes only.Will you be so good as to make a note of these things?""Yes, Grandmother."
Ink, candle grease, wash basket--what did they matter in the scheme of life, with spring tapping at the window? With a huge effort Joan forced back a wild burst of insurrection, and remained standing in what she hoped was the correct attitude of a properly repentant child."How long can I stand it?" she cried inwardly."How long before I smash things and make a dash for freedom?""Now go back and finish reading to your grand father."And once more, trembling with anger and mortification, the girl picked her way over the limp and indifferent skins, took up the paper and sat down.Once more her clear, fresh voice, this time with a little quiver in it, fitted in to the regular tick of the querulous clock, the near-by chatter of birds' tongues and the hiss of burning logs.
The prim old lady, who had in her time borne a wonderful resemblance to the girl whom she watched so closely,--even to the chestnut-brown hair and the tip-tilted nose, the full lips, the round chin and the spirit that at any moment might urge her to break away from discipline,--retired to carry on her daily tour of inspection; and the old man stood again with his back to the fire to listen impatiently and with a futile jealousy to the deeds and misdeeds of an ever-young and ever-active world.