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whole, Christabel approved of her family and her surroundings. The house in which she grew up was small and rather shabby, but carriages with coachmen and footmen stopped at it, bringing hothouse grapes to lie in the fruit-dish on the sideboard, hothouse flowers to fill the vases. And lack of money could be bravely borne, since Aunt Ann and Aunt Deborah sent her to boarding-school, Aunt Lydia helped with her clothes, Aunt Susannah paid for the summer when she and five other high-born maidens of Germantown followed Mrs. Plummer's yearning profile, flat heels, and streaming cock-feathers through Ann Hathaway's garden, the Louvre, and Saint Peter's.

The great-aunts lived on estates with smooth lawns, weeping trees, and formal flower-beds, with names like Shady Lawn and The Cedars—places that looked and sounded like high