fan, her white gloves, or the wee
slippers that covered her enchanting feet.

Every detail of harness, wheel, and brake--even the horn itself--had
passed under the colonel's personal supervision; Matthew on the box
straight as a hitching-post and bursting with pride, reins gathered,
whip balanced, the leaders steady and the wheel horses in line. Then the
word had been given, and away they had swept round the circle and so on
down the long driveway to the outer gate and Kennedy Square. Ten miles
an hour were the colonel's orders and ten miles an hour must Matthew
make, including the loading and unloading of his fair passenger and her
companions, or there would be the devil to pay on his return.

And the inside of the house offered no less a welcome. Drawn up in the
wide hall, under the direct command of old Alec, the head butler, were
the house servants;--mulatto maids in caps, snuff-colored second butlers
in livery, jet-black mammies in new bandannas and white aprons--all in a
flutter of excitement, and each one determined to get the first glimpse
of Marse Harry's young lady, no matter at what risk.

Alec himself was a joy to look upon--eyeballs and teeth gleaming, his
face one wide, encircling smile. Marse Harry was the apple of his eye,
and had been ever since the day of his birth. He had carried him on his
back when a boy; had taught him to fish and hunt and to ride to hounds;
had nursed him when he fell ill at the University in his college days,
and would gladly have laid down his life for him had any such necessity
arisen. To-night, in honor of the occasion, he was rigged out in a
new bottle-green coat with shiny brass buttons, white waistcoat, white
gloves three sizes too big for him, and a huge white cravat flaring out
almost to the tips of his ears. Nothing was too good for Alec--so his
mistress thought--and for the best of reasons. Not only was he the
ideal servant of the old school, but he was the pivot on which the whole
establishment moved. If a particular brand or vintage was needed, or a
key was missing, or did a hair trunk, or a pair of spurs, or last
week's Miscellany, go astray--or even were his mistress's spectacles
mislaid--Alec could put his hand upon each and every item in so short a
space of time that the loser was convinced the old man had hidden them
on purpose, to enjoy their refinding. Moorlands without old Alec would
hive been a wheel without a hub.

As a distinct feature of all these prepa