Soon after her son-in-law and his father
died, she became so much THE Severence that fashionable people
forgot her origin, regarded her as the true embodiment of the
pride and rank of Severence--and Severence became, thanks wholly
to her, a synonym for pride and rank, though really the Severences
were not especially blue-blooded.
She did not live with her widowed daughter, as two establishments
were more impressive; also, she knew that she was not a livable
person--and thought none the worse of herself for that
characteristic of strong personalities. In the Severence family,
at the homestead, there were, besides five servants, but three
persons--the widowed Roxana and her two daughters, Margaret and
Lucia--Lucia so named by Madam Bowker because with her birth ended
the Severence hopes of a son to perpetuate in the direct line the
family Christian name for its chief heir. From the side entrance
to the house extended an alley of trees, with white flowering
bushes from trunk to trunk like a hedge. At one end of the alley
was a pretty, arched veranda of the house, with steps descending;
at the other end, a graceful fountain in a circle, round which
extended a stone bench.
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