but she saw the change. Her childhood had
vanished as though some breath had blown it away in the magic mirror.

PART III

CHAPTER I

In a fortnight Phyl had adjusted herself to her new environment so
completely that to use Pinckney's expression, she might have been bred and
born in Charleston.

Custom and acquaintanceship had begun to dull without destroying the charm
of the place and the ghostly something, the something that during the
first two days had seemed to haunt Vernons, the something indefinable she
had called "It" had withdrawn.

The spell, whatever it was, had been broken that night in the garden, when
Pinckney's commonplace remark had shattered the dream-state into which she
had worked herself with the assistance of Prue, Juliet's letters, the
little secret arbour and the moonlight of the South.

One morning, coming down to breakfast, she found Miss Pinckney in
agitation, an open telegram in one hand and a feather duster in the
other.

It was one of the early morning habits of Miss Pinckney to range the house
superintending things with a feather duster in hand, not so much for use
as for the purpose of encouraging others. She was in the breakfast room
now dusting spasmodically things that did not require dusting and talking
all the time, pausing every now and then to have another glance at the
telegram whilst Richard Pinckney, unable to get a word in, sat on a chair,
and Jim, the little coloured page, who had brought in the urn, stood by
listening and admiring.

"Forty miles from here and ten from a railway station," said Miss
Pinckney, "and how am I to get there?"

"Automobile," said Pinckney.

It was evidently not his first suggestion as to this means of locomotion,
for the suggestion was received without an outburst, neither resented nor
assented to in fact. They took their seats at table and then it all came
out.

Colonel Seth Grangerson of Grangerson House, Grangerville, S. Carolina,
was ill. Miss Pinckney was his nearest relative, the nearest at least with
whom he was not fighting, and he had wired to her, or rather his son had
wired to her, to come at once.

"As if I were a bird," said the old lady. Grangerville was a backwater
place, badly served by the railway, and it would take the best part of a
day to get there by ordinary means.

"A car will get you there inside a couple of hours," said Pinckney.

"As if he couldn't have sent for Susan Revenall," went on she as though