ur house near here?"

"Yes--pretty near."

Macloud looked at him with a grin.

"She has nothing to do with your liking the town, I suppose?" he said,
knowingly.

"Well, she's not exactly a deterrent--and there are half a dozen more
of the same sort. Oh, on that score, Hampton's not half bad, my
friend!" he laughed.

"You mean there are half a dozen of _that_ sort," with a slight jerk of
his head toward Miss Carrington, "who are unmarried?"

Croyden nodded--then looked across; and both men raised their hats and
bowed.

"And how many married?" Macloud queried.

"Several--but you let them _alone_--it's not fashionable here, as yet,
for a pretty married woman to have an affair. She loves her husband, or
acts it, at least. They're neither prudes nor prigs, but they are not
_that_."

"So far as you know!" laughed Macloud. "But my experience has been that
the pretty married woman who won't flirt, if occasion offers where
there is no danger of being compromised, is a pretty scarce article.
However, Hampton may be an exception."

"You're too cynical," said Croyden. "We turn in here--this is
Clarendon."

"Why! you beggar!" Macloud exclaimed. "I've been sympathizing with
you, because I thought you were living in a shack-of-a-place--and,
behold!"

"Yes, it is not bad," said Croyden. "I've no ground for complaint, on
that head. I can, at least, be comfortable here. It's not bad inside,
either."

That evening, after dinner, when the two men were sitting in the
library while a short-lived thunder storm raged outside, Macloud, after
a long break in the conversation--which is the surest sign of
camaraderie among men--observed, apropos of nothing except the talk of
the morning:

"Lord! man, you've got no kick coming!"

"Who said I had?" Croyden demanded.

"You did, by damning it with faint praise."

"Damning what?"

"Your present environment--and yet, look you! A comfortable house, fine
grounds, beautiful old furnishings, delicious victuals, and two negro
servants, who are devoted to you, or the place--no matter which, for it
assures their permanence; the one a marvelous cook, the other a
competent man; and, by way of society, a lot of fine, old antebellum
families, with daughters like the Symphony in Blue, we saw this
morning. God! you're hard to please."

"And that is not all," said Croyden, laughing and pointing to the
portraits. "I've got ancestors--by purchase."

"And you have come by them clean-handed,