Edward Phillips Oppenheim

The Governors Edward Phillips Oppenheim

Virginia, when she had torn herself away from the bosom of her sorrowing but excitedfamily, and boarded the car which passed only once a day through the tiny village inMassachusetts, where all her life had been spent, had felt herself, notwithstanding hernineteen years, a person of consequence and dignity. Virginia, when four hours later shefollowed a tall footman in wonderful livery through a stately suite of reception rooms inone of the finest of Fifth Avenue mansions, felt herself suddenly a very insignificant person. The roar and bustle of New York were still in her ears. Bewildered as she had been by thisfirst contact with all the distracting influences of a great city, she was even more distraughtby the wonder and magnificence of these, her more immediate surroundings. She, who hadlived all her life in a simple farmhouse, where every one worked, and a single servant wasregarded as a luxury, found herself suddenly in the palace of a millionaire, a palace madeperfect by the despoilment of more than one of the most ancient homes in Europe. Very timidly, and with awed glances, she looked around her as she was conducted inleisurely manner to the sanctum of the great man at whose bidding she had come. Thepictures on the walls, magnificent and impressive even to her ignorant eyes; the hardwoodfloors, the wonderful furniture, the statuary and flowers, the smooth-tongued servants-allthese things were an absolute revelation to her. She had read of such things, even perhapsdreamed of them, but she had never imagined it possible that she herself might be broughtinto actual contact with them