She had been in the house, at
different periods, as a child; in those days her grandmother lived
there. Then there had been an absence of ten years, followed by a
return to Albany before her father's death. Her grandmother, old
Mrs. Archer, had exercised, chiefly within the limits of the family, a
large hospitality in the early period, and the little girls often
spent weeks under her roof- weeks of which Isabel had the happiest
memory. The manner of life was different from that of her own home-
larger, more plentiful, practically more festal; the discipline of the
nursery was delightfully vague and the opportunity of listening to the
conversation of one's elders (which with Isabel was a highly-valued
pleasure) almost unbounded. There was a constant coming and going; her
grandmother's sons and daughters and their children appeared to be
in the enjoyment of standing invitations to arrive and remain, so that
the house offered to a certain extent the appearance of a bustling
provincial inn kept by a gentle old landlady who sighed a great deal
and never presented a bill.
Isabel of course knew nothing about bills; but even as a child she
thought her grandmother's home romantic.
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