ut it--Steady!--there, I knew it)--Excuse me, Miss d'Estree.
Well,--the young ladies. There's one of our cousins, a grand, handsome,
sombre, estimable girl, whom nobody ever flirts with, but whom somebody
will marry. That's Henrietta Palmer. Then there is Charlotte
Benson--not pretty, but stylish and so clever. She carries too many guns
for most men; she is a capital girl in her way. Then there is Mary
Leighton; she is small, blonde, lovely. I do not believe in her
particularly, but we are great friends, and flirt a little, I am told. I
quite wonder how you will like each other. I hope you will tell me your
impressions. No doubt she will be rather your companion, for Henrietta
and Charlotte Benson are desperately intimate, and have a room together.
They are quite romantic and very superior. Pretty Miss Leighton isn't in
their line exactly, and is rather left to her own reflections, I should
think. But she makes up for it when the gentlemen appear; she isn't left
with any time upon her hands, you may be sure. I don't know what it is
about her; she never said a bright thing in her life, and a great, great
many silly ones; but everybody wants to talk to her, and her silly words
are precious to the man to whom she says them. Did you ever meet anybody
like her?"

"I? oh no. I never met anybody," I said, half-bitterly, beginning to be
afraid of the people whom I so soon should meet; and then I began to
talk about the road, and to inquire how far we had yet to drive, and to
ask to have a shawl about my shoulders. It was not yet seven o'clock,
but the country air was fresh and cool, and the rapid driving made
it cooler.

"We are almost there; and I hope, Miss d'Estree, that you won't feel as
if you were going among strangers. You will not feel so long, at any
rate. It is too bad Richard isn't here; you know him so much better than
the rest of us. But before he comes back, I am sure you will feel as
much at home as he. But here's the gate."

There was a drive of perhaps an eighth of a mile from the gate to the
house: the trees and hedge were thick, so that one saw little of the
house from the road. The grounds were well kept; there was a nice lawn,
in front of the house, and some very fine old trees. The house was low
and irregular, but quite picturesque. It fronted the road; the rear
looked toward the river, about quarter of a mile distant, and of which
the view was lovely.

There was a piazza in front, on which four ladies