And he also might have been considered as one of the family, since he
had been coming to the house daily for many years. He came usually to
see Ruth, but of late he had found it necessary to see William Pressley
more often; and they were talking eagerly and in a low tone, rather
apart, when the boy and girl paused to see and hear what was taking
place within the great room. William Pressley sat in the easiest chair
in the warmest corner, close to the hearth. There are some men--and a
few women--who always take the softest seat in the best place, and they
do it so naturally that no one ever thinks of their doing anything else
or expects them to sit elsewhere. William Pressley was one of these
persons. In the next easiest chair, on the other side of the hearth, was
his aunt, the widow Broadnax, whose short, broad, shapeless, inert
figure was lying rather than sitting almost buried in a heap of
cushions. This lady was the sister of the judge and the half-sister of
the other lady, Miss Penelope Knox,--the thin, nervous, restless little
old woman,--who was fidgeting back and forth between the hearth and the
doorway leading to the distant kitchen.
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