gentle smile.

"Certainly. I have been talking for twenty minutes." I was now presented
to Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael, also old, also charming, in widow's dress
no less in the bloom of age than Mrs. Gregory, but whiter and very
diminutive. She shyly welcomed me to Kings Port. "Take him home with
you, Julia. We pulled your bell three times, and it's too damp for you
to be out. Don't forget," Mrs. Gregory said to me, "that you haven't
told me a word about your Aunt Carola, and that I shall expect you to
come and do it." She went slowly away from us, up the East Place, tall,
graceful, sweeping into the distance like a ship. No haste about her
dignified movement, no swinging of elbows, nothing of the present hour!

"What a beautiful girl she must have been!" I murmured aloud,
unconsciously.

"No, she was not a beauty in her youth," said my new guide in her shy
voice, "but always fluent, always a wit. Kings Port has at times thought
her tongue too downright. We think that wit runs in her family, for
young John Mayrant has it; and her first-cousin-once-removed put the
Earl of Mainridge in his place at her father's ball in 1840. Miss
Beaufain (as she was then) asked the Earl how he liked America; and he
replied, very well, except for the people, who were so vulgar. 'What can
you expect?' said Miss Beaufain; 'we're descended from the English.'
I am very sorry for Maria--for Mrs. St. Michael--just at present. Her
young cousin, John Mayrant, is making an alliance deeply vexatious to
her. Do you happen to know Miss Hortense Rieppe?"

I had never heard of her.

"No? She has been North lately. I thought you might have met her. Her
father takes her North, I believe, whenever any one will invite them.
They have sometimes managed to make it extend through an unbroken year.
Newport, I am credibly informed, greatly admires her. We in Kings
Port have never (except John Mayrant, apparently) seen anything in her
beauty, which Northerners find so exceptional."

"What is her type?" I inquired.

"I consider that she looks like a steel wasp. And she has the assurance
to call herself a Kings Port girl. Her father calls himself a general,
and it is repeated that he ran away at the battle of Chattanooga. I hope
you will come to see me another day, when you can spare time from the
battle of Cowpens. I am Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael, the other lady is
Mrs. Gregory St. Michael. I wonder if you will keep us all straight?"
And smiling, the little