Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/111

Rh befuddled brain. He had a vague feeling that it was because he looked strangely like one of the far-off Bolling ancestors—the one in powdered cue and high stock that used to hang in the parlor and had been discarded for a crayon portrait of more recent date. As a little boy Rolfe had been afraid of the portrait, although fascinated by it. Aunt Peachy had used his fear of it to control the child, making vague threats that "the ol' man wif his th'oat all wropped up was a gonter ketch him." Both the old negress and the little white boy believed it was this very man who had hanged himself in the attic, connecting his stock with the noose, but they were mistaken. The portrait in question was of the charming gentleman who had planned the sunken garden and was responsible for the noble proportions of The Hedges.

Philip had changed decidedly from the boy of nineteen. He had always had a certain poise in his bearing in spite of the too long legs and arms, accentuated by the too short sleeves and trousers of the country-made clothes in which he had last been seen by his family. Now, not only did his clothes fit him, but he fitted his clothes. He impressed his people as he had Major Taylor. He had the indescribable air of birth and breeding. The set of his head, turn