And now that the more anachronistic of the furnishings had been banished (what-nots, rep sets with antimacassars, walnut writing-desks, hat-racks, marble-topped tables, chiffoniers, commodes, ottomans, Victorian horsehair), and fresh air had exorcised the mustiness she had found so depressing, there was no question that tulipwood and hickory, spindle-legs and mahogany, carved oak and pewter, Sheraton and Windsor, lady-made tapestry, threadbare velvet, brocade and damask, however little they might harmonize one with the other, were as much a part of the historic old mansion as the family portraits; and nothing she could buy in New York or Philadelphia, even if she confined herself to “period” shops, would take their place. Like the walls they had been the mute companions of nearly three centuries of Carterets; and Gita, sitting on one of the faded chairs in the drawing-room, sometimes fancied there was a knowing smile on the lips of her grandmother’s portrait, painted shortly after she came to the manor as a bride, and smiled in unwilling response as she remembered one of her last conversations with the redoubtable old lady. She had surrendered to the house, no doubt of that. She had despised ancestral traditions as long as they had given her nothing, had been a convinced democrat, with leanings toward socialism, as long as she was a quasi-derelict; but now that she possessed an adequate and independent income, inherited from her line with one of the most historic old properties in America, she felt as if she were being reëducated in silent communion with every Carteret that had lived here before her. There were family portraits all over the lower floor, and their painted unchanging faces had become as familiar to her as those of her lively and excessively modern young friends; she sat in the twilight and tried to visualize that long and vanished line that had contributed to the personality of the house even if their shades did not return to haunt it. She had no fear of ghosts and would have liked to see her Carterets moving about their old habitat in the picturesque costumes of their eras. The only ghost that would have frightened her was her too-recent grandmother’s, and if her father had stood before her she would have shrieked her dismay. She sincerely hoped his discarnate self was permanently impaled in a roasting pit.