Read "Hudson River Bracketed" by Edith Wharton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The door of the house stood wide. The afternoon radiance gilded the emerald veil of willows, shot back in fire from the unshuttered windows, rifled the last syringas of their inmost fragrance. Vance, even through his perturbation, felt again the spell of the old house. That door had first admitted him into the illimitable windings of the Past; and as he approached the magic threshold compunction and anger vanished.
-"Oh, Vance!" he heard Miss Spear exclaim. He caught in her rich voice a mingling of reproach and apology--yes, apology. She was atoning already--for what?--but she was also challenging. "I knew you'd come." She put her hand on his arm with her light coercive touch. "Our cousin Mr. Tom Lorburn is here--he arrived unexpectedly on Sunday to see the Willows. It's years and years since he's been here. ."