ood
American society--people such as one could once meet everywhere when
I was young, but who have been destroyed by the invasion of the
proletariat. You are in the last citadel of good-breeding. By the way,
find out, if you can, if any of the Bombo connection are extant; as
through them I should like, if possible, to establish a chapter of
the Scions in South Carolina. Have you, met a Miss Rieppe, a decidedly
striking young woman, who says she is from Kings Port, and who recently
passed through here with a very common man dancing attendance on her? He
owns the Hermana, and she is said to be engaged to him."

This wasn't as good as meeting Miss Rieppe myself; but the new angle at
which I got her from my Aunt was distinctly a contribution toward the
young woman's likeness; I felt that I should know her at sight, if ever
she came within seeing distance. And it would be entertaining to find
that she was a Bombo; but that could wait; what couldn't wait was the
Hermana. I postponed the Fannings, hurried by the door where they waited
for me, and, coming to the end of Court Street, turned to the right and
sought among the wharves the nearest vista that could give me a view of
the harbor. Between the silent walls of commerce desolated, and by the
empty windows from which Prosperity once looked out, I threaded my way
to a point upon the town's eastern edge. Yes, that was the steam yacht's
name: the Hermana. I didn't make it out myself, she lay a trifle too far
from shore; but I could read from a little fluttering pennant that her
owner was not on board; and from the second loafer whom I questioned I
learned, besides her name, that she had come from New York here to
meet her owner, whose name he did not know and whose arrival was still
indefinite. This was not very much to find out; but it was so much more
than I had found out about the Fannings that, although I now faithfully
returned to my researches, and sat over open books until noon, I
couldn't tell you a word of what I read. Where was Miss Rieppe, and
where was the owner of the Hermana? Also, precisely how ill was the hero
of Chattanooga, her poor dear father?

At the Exchange I opened the door upon a conversation which, in
consequence, broke off abruptly; but this much I came in for:--

"Nothing but the slightest bruise above his eye. The other one is in
bed."

It was the severe lady who said this; I mean that lady who, among all
the severe ones I had met, seemed capab