Even the glass shades that
use'd to shield their wax candles were in their old places. There
was their old-world atmosphere of stateliness; their Chinese jars,
their English vases, their beautiful old Chelsea figures; and the
sampler so painstakingly
_Work'd by Ann Eliza Hynds
Ag'd 9 Yrs. 2 Mos., Nov'r, 1757_
that had been carefully framed and mounted as a small fire-screen,
perhaps for Ann Eliza's lady mama or proud grandmother. It was such
human and intimate things, the mute mementoes of children who had
passed, that made us begin to love Hynds House, for all its bigness
and uncanniness and dilapidation.
We did discover one human touch laid upon the place by Sophronisba
herself. She had gathered together a full set of small, hand-colored
photographs of Confederate generals, wrapped them in a hand-made
Confederate flag, into which was tucked a receipt signed by Judah
Benjamin for Hynds silver melted into a bar and given to the Cause,
written, "The glory is departed," across the package, and hidden it.
Alicia, who had a hankering after Confederates, herself, put the
photographs in a leather-covered album at least as old as
themselves, and kept them sacredly.
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