Classic Poem

They lived alone
Under the portraits of their ancestors—
Two elderly spinsters slowly graying away.
They cooked thin little meals,
And ate them on Lowestoft china
At the banquet-table no longer served by slaves.
Year by year
Their shadowy income dwindled.

One portrait was a Romney—
Two brave young lads in velvet.
A London dealer heard of it and came over,
And politely, insinuatingly, asked to see.
Reluctantly they showed the stranger in.

Twenty thousand dollars he offered,
Sure of the prize—
Were they not visibly starving, these ladies,
In the ashes of grandeur?

The sisters stirred a little
In pained surprise.
“You quite mistake us,” the elder said;
“We cannot sell our family portraits.”
And the dealer, in pained surprise,
Bowed himself out.

A few days later came a letter
Offering thirty thousand.
But the dealer waited in vain for an answer.

Then forty thousand.
A young nephew,
Blowing in from the U. of S. C.,
Was paying a duty call on his aunts.
“By the Lord, I'd take it!” he said.

The ladies shrank like gray moths frosted,
And the elder said:
“Great-aunt Millicent, whose name I bear,
Left the picture to Father.
They were stepsons of old Simeon Hugea,
Her grandfather—
His wife had been the widow of an Italian.”

“Yes, and so not of our line—
They don't belong here.”

The younger sister turned her eyes inward:
“Old Simeon could make nothing of those boys.
He gave them the grand tour
And ordered this portrait,
And they never came back—
Took to fiddling and painting like their father.
Millicent, do you think—”

“I am in doubt,” said the elder sister;
“They were collateral.”

So a family council gathered in the ashen-coated drawing-room
And argued acrimoniously.
And it was decided that the half-Italian collaterals,
Who were not of the blood,
Might well be sold and forgotten.
And the deal was closed.

“It is a great deal of money,” said the elder sister,
“But I am not quite sure—”

And the younger,
“Who was this Romney?”