served corps of cavaliers who, though past the early and
crude bloom of their first youth, were still malleable material. Who could
desire a more gallant attendant than the agile though elderly Major
Beaufort, who, with a large party of nieces, daughters, and granddaughters,
made the tour of the watering-places each succeeding year, pervading the
atmosphere of each with the subtle essence of his gallantry and
hilariousness?

"I should be a miserable man, sir," proclaimed the Major, chivalrously
upon each succeeding Thursday--"I should be a miserable man in seeing
before me such grace and youth and beauty, feeling that I am no longer
young, if I did not possess a heart which will throb for Woman as long as
it beats with life."

Having distinguished himself by which poetic remark, he usually called up
a waiter with champagne and glasses, in which beverage he gallantly drank
the health of the admiring circle which partook of it with him.

Attached to the Beaufort party were various lesser luminaries, each of
whom, it must be confessed, might well, under ordinary circumstances,
have formed the centre of a circle himself; legal luminaries, social
luminaries, political luminaries, each playing ten-pins and whist, each
riding, each showing in all small gallantries, and adding by their
presence to the exhilaration of the hour.

There was one gentleman, however, who, though he was not of the Beaufort
party, could still not be considered among the lesser luminaries. He was
a planet with an orbit of his own. This gentleman had ridden up to the
hotel one afternoon on a fine horse, accompanied by a handsome, gloomy
boy on another animal as fine, and followed by a well-dressed young negro
carrying various necessary trappings, and himself mounted in a manner
which did no discredit to his owner. The air of the party was such as to
occasion some sensation on the front gallery, where the greater number of
the guests were congregated.

"Oh," cried one of the Beauforts, "what a distinguished-looking man. Oh,
what a handsome boy! and what splendid horses."

At that moment one of the other ladies--a dark, quiet, clever matron from
South Carolina--uttered an exclamation.

"Is it possible," she said. "There is Colonel De Willoughby."

The new arrival recognised her at once and made his way towards her with
the most graceful air of ease and pleasure, notwithstanding that it was
necessary that he should wind his way dexterously round num