clump of trees, a figure so bizarre and characteristic that it might
have been a resident Daphne--a figure over-dressed in crimson silk
and lace, with bare brown arms and shoulders, and a wreath of
honeysuckle--stepped out of the shadow. It was followed by a man.
Culpepper started. To come to the point briefly, he recognized in the
man the features of his respected uncle, Colonel Starbottle; in the
female, a lady who may be briefly described as one possessing absolutely
no claim to an introduction to the polite reader. To hurry over equally
unpleasant details, both were evidently under the influence of liquor.

From the excited conversation that ensued, Culpepper gathered that
some insult had been put upon the lady at a public ball which she had
attended that evening; that the Colonel, her escort, had failed to
resent it with the sanguinary completeness that she desired. I regret
that, even in a liberal age, I may not record the exact and even
picturesque language in which this was conveyed to her hearers. Enough
that at the close of a fiery peroration, with feminine inconsistency
she flew at the gallant Colonel, and would have visited her delayed
vengeance upon his luckless head, but for the prompt interference of
Culpepper. Thwarted in this, she threw herself upon the ground, and then
into unpicturesque hysterics. There was a fine moral lesson, not only in
this grotesque performance of a sex which cannot afford to be grotesque,
but in the ludicrous concern with which it inspired the two men.
Culpepper, to whom woman was more or less angelic, was pained and
sympathetic; the Colonel, to whom she was more or less improper, was
exceedingly terrified and embarrassed. Howbeit the storm was soon over,
and after Mistress Dolores had returned a little dagger to its sheath
(her garter), she quietly took herself out of Madrono Hollow, and
happily out of these pages forever. The two men, left to themselves,
conversed in low tones. Dawn stole upon them before they separated:
the Colonel quite sobered and in full possession of his usual jaunty
self-assertion; Culpepper with a baleful glow in his hollow cheek, and
in his dark eyes a rising fire.

The next morning the general ear of Madrono Hollow was filled with
rumors of the Colonel's mishap. It was asserted that he had been invited
to withdraw his female companion from the floor of the Assembly Ball
at the Independence Hotel, and that, failing to do this, both were
expelled. I