?"

I replied that I was sure that I should like Miss Matoaca's, for I had
heard them lauded by General Bolingbroke; at which the poor lady blushed
until her cheeks looked like withered rose leaves. She was one of those
unhappy women, I had learned during breakfast, who suffered from a
greater mental activity than was usually allotted to the females of
their generation. Behind that long and narrow face, with its pencilled
eyebrows, its fine, straight nose, and restlessly shining eyes, what
battles of conviction against tradition must have waged. Was the final
triumph of intellect due, in reality, to the accident of an unhappy
love? Had the General's frailties driven this shy little lady, with her
devotion to law and order, and her excellent mince pies, into a martyr
for the rights of sex?

"I am told that Mrs. Clay prides herself upon her pies," she remarked.
"I have never eaten them, but Dr. Theophilus tells me that he prefers
mine because I use less suet."

"I am sure nobody's could compare with yours, sister Matoaca," observed
Miss Mitty in an affable tone, "and I happen to know that Mrs. Clay
resorts to Mrs. Camberwell's cook-book. _We_ prefer Mrs. Randolph's,"
she added, turning to me.

"Well, we'll ask Ben to dinner some day, and he may judge," said Sally.

Instantly I felt that her words were a challenge, and the shining
mahogany table, with its delicate lace mats, its silver and its
chrysanthemums, became a battle-field for opposing spirits. I saw Miss
Mitty stiffen and the corners of her mouth grow rigid under her
pleasant, fixed smile.

"Will you have some marmalade, Mr. Starr?" she asked, and I knew that
with the phrase, she had flung down her gauntlet on the table. Her very
politeness veiled a purpose, not of iron, but finely tempered and
resistless as a blade. Had she said to me: "Sir, you are an upstart, and
I, sitting quietly at the same table with you, and inviting you to eat
of the same dish of marmalade, am a descendant of the Blands and the
Fairfaxes,"--her words would have stabbed me less deeply than did the
pathetic "Can this be possible?" of her smiling features.

A canary, swinging in a gilt cage between the curtains at the window,
broke suddenly into a jubilant fluting; and rising from the table, we
stood for a minute, as if petrified, with our eyes on the bird, and on
the box of blossoming sweet alyssum upon the sill. A little later, when
I left with the plea that the General expected me