"Why, didn't you know it was our indigenous style of architecture in this part of the world?" Her smile of mockery had returned, but he did not mind for he saw it was not directed against himself. "I perceive," she continued, "that you are not familiar with the epoch-making work of A. J. Downing Esq. on Landscape Gardening in America." She turned to the bookcases, ran her hand along a shelf, and took down a volume bound in black cloth with the title in gilt Gothic lettering. Her fingers flew from page to page, her short-sighted eyes following as swiftly. "Here—here's the place. It's too long to read aloud; but the point is that Mr. Downing, who was the great authority of the period, sums up the principal architectural styles as the Grecian, the Chinese, the Gothic, the Tuscan or Italian villa, and—Hudson River Bracketed. Unless I'm mistaken, he cites the Willows as one of the most perfect examples of Hudson River Bracketed (this was in 1842), and—yes, here's the place: 'The seat of Ambrose Lorburn Esq., the Willows, near Paul's Landing, Dutchess County, N.Y., is one of the most successful instances of etc., etc… . architectural elements ingeniously combined from the Chinese and the Tuscan.' And so they were! What an eye the man had. And here's the picture, willows and all! How lovely these old steel engravings were … and look at my great-uncle and aunt on the lawn, pointing out to each other with pride and admiration their fairly obvious copper beech … 'one of the first ever planted in a gentleman's grounds in the United States.'"

They bent their heads together over the engraving, which, as she said, reproduced the house exactly as Vance had just beheld it, except that the willows were then slender young trees, and the lawns mown, that striped awnings shaded the lower windows, and that a gentleman in a tall hat and a stock was calling the attention of a lady in bonnet and cashmere shawl to the celebrated copper beech. From Miss Spear's tone Vance could not tell whether pride or mockery was uppermost in her comments on her ancestor's achievement. But he dimly guessed that, though she might laugh at the Willows, and at what Mr. Downing said of it, she was not sorry that the house figured so honourably in his book.

"There," she concluded with a laugh, "now you know what the Hudson River Bracketed style was like, and why Uncle Ambrose Lorburn was so proud of his specimen of it." She handed him the volume, glanced at her wristwatch, and turned to nod to him from the threshold. "Gracious, how late it is! I must hunt up the Tracy children, and see how much crockery they've smashed."