Private Life Read Online Free PDF

We had the sun, the moon, and the stars. We had Mr.
    Harriman and Commodore Vanderbilt, but we never had these last two gentlemen at the
    same time. Now, in effect, we do, for Dr. Early's expedition has discovered something we
    would not have suspected to be possible in God's grand Creation.

    Beside the print was a photograph of a man that she thought she recognized, but
    perhaps it was only that he looked much like all the other young men she knew, the
    arching brow, the straight vertical of the nose, the square chin. He was wearing a hat in
    the Western style; his glance was direct and challenging. Unfortunately, she could not
    ascertain what his great discovery might be, because a man picked up the paper from the
    table beside her and carried it off. The Earlys were well known around town as Rebel
    sympathizers, too prominent and wealthy to end up as bushwhackers, but not the sort of
    people John Gentry socialized with. Margaret seemed to recall that there were many boys
    but no girls in the family, and that when the father had died (what was his name?
    Patrick?), the Rebel sympathizers had turned out in great numbers for the funeral, and
    John Gentry remarked, "There was another one who was never the same since the war."

    Outside the window, the Union soldiers (numbering fourteen) had passed, and the
    brass band, and now came a row of wagons. The first of these bore a pile of hemp, upon
    which sat girls from the orphanage dressed in white and carrying bouquets of daylilies,
    black-eyed Susans, and a few late shrub roses. After these girls came Mr. Alexander's
    wagon that he got from a circus. It was pulled by a team of four grays with red ribbons
    braided into their manes, and into it he had loaded his best white sow and her squealing
    piglets. Then came the tobacco wagon that some of the local farmers kept in a barn
    somewhere. Margaret could smell the fragrance of the leaves as it went by.

    She regarded Robert Bell and Beatrice. He was staring out at the tobacco wagon,
    but he had his hand on the back of Beatrice's chair. She was fanning herself. She glanced
    at him. Even sitting down, Beatrice could nearly look him in the eye. Then Margaret saw
    her mother look at the two of them and away, then shift in her seat and adjust her skirt to
    cover her feet. Lavinia's hair, which had once been so thick that she could hardly pin it
    up, was more manageable now, but she was the sort of woman who did not age, just as
    John Gentry, who was seventy-five, seemed closer to sixty. It was Lavinia's oft-repeated
    lament that the supply of men in the county was short. There were numerous
    grandfathers, but husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons were scarce.

    Beside Margaret, Elizabeth leaned forward to watch the troop of horses go by.
    Whereas Beatrice was dark and tall, Elizabeth was brown-haired and small-boned, with a
    turned-up nose; Margaret thought she was beautiful. Beatrice had no dimples where they
    should have been, Cupid's-bow lips (her best feature), and large hands (and feet). But
    Beatrice had a way about her. Her smile was slow, her movements were slow--not as if
    she were lazy or sluggish, but more as if she had all the time in the world. Just now,
    Margaret saw her smooth her hand over the silk of her skirt, and heave a relaxed sigh.
    Robert Bell smiled down at her, perhaps in spite of himself. But he stepped back, and
    removed his hand from Beatrice's chair.

    The horse drill passed. The riders wore bands across their chests and rosettes on
    their shoulders, and they waved their hats in unison as they went by, first to their left and
    then to their right. Every couple of minutes, they halted in formation, swept low over
    their horses' necks, then waved their hats over their heads and trotted forward. It occurred
    to Margaret to wonder again what Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early had discovered that
    changed the face of creation as the music faded into the distance when the brass band
    turned off Front Street four