screetly brought up--and--yes, quite pretty, certainly. Let us drink
to his success in that quarter.--Ladies!--Mr. Bainrothe!--fill your
glasses.--Franklin, the sherry.--Morton, the port. Which will you have,
Bainrothe? or do you prefer Rhine wines?"

"A glass of Hockheimer, if you have it convenient, Franklin. Those heavy
wines are too heating for our summers, I think, Mr. Monfort. You
yourself would do well to follow my example."

"Thank you," said my father, loftily. "When you feed lions on
pound-cake you may expect to see Englishmen drink German acidulations
instead of the generous juice of the grape--fostered on southern soil,
above volcanoes even--to which they have been used since the time of the
last Henrys. Beer were a better alternative. Give me claret or madeira."

Mr. Bainrothe had his limits, and usually took care not to exceed them.
My father's easy good-nature was converted into frozen _hauteur_ at any
open effort to transcend the boundaries of his independence. He gloried
in "_Magna Charta_," and never knowingly sacrificed his baronial
privileges, yet he was wax in the hands of a skillful wheedler, and his
"adamantine will" was readily fused in the fires of flattery.

We drank the proposed toast, much to Mr. Bainrothe's discomfiture. He
had made the remark as a skillful feeler, and was mortified at my
father's ready acquiescence in his plans. Of course, Evelyn and I both
saw through the unskillful _ruse_, and pledged him with hearty malice;
but he had yet another shot in reserve, which told with fatal effect.

"Mr. Biddle has offered me a cashiership for Claude," he remarked,
carelessly, "in a thriving town in Georgia, and I shall accept for him
forthwith. Then, if Miss Stanbury chooses to accompany him into exile,
it will be all for the best; but, were he about to remain here, I would
not suffer him to think of matrimony for years to come. 'A young man
married is a young man marred,' as Shakespeare says somewhere, I
believe; and I agree with him. A youth of twenty-one ought to be free
for a season until he can shape his life."

I felt myself tremble from head to foot. I had never contemplated the
possibility of his absence, and the conviction of my deep interest in
him flashed across me for the first time with lightning force and
vividness. Evelyn did not reproach me for blushing this time; I was pale
enough to satisfy even her spleen. Indeed, some better feeling than she
had before manifested seem