enteen years, Miss
Margaretta's niece and heir. Poor little Gardis, having been born a girl
when she should have been a boy, was christened with the family name--a
practice not uncommon in some parts of the South, where English customs
of two centuries ago still retain their hold with singular tenacity; but
the three syllables were soon abbreviated to two for common use, and the
child grew up with the quaint name of Gardis.

They were at breakfast now, the two remaining members of the family, in
the marble-floored dining-room. The latticed windows were open; birds
were singing outside, and roses blooming; a flood of sunshine lit up
every corner of the apartment, showing its massive Chinese vases, its
carved ivory ornaments, its hanging lamp of curious shape, and its
spindle-legged sideboard, covered with dark-colored plates and platters
ornamented with dark-blue dragons going out to walk, and crocodiles
circling around fantastically roofed temples as though they were waiting
for the worshipers to come out in order to make a meal of them. But, in
spite of these accessories, the poor old room was but a forlorn place:
the marble flooring was sunken and defaced, portions were broken into
very traps for unwary feet, and its ancient enemy, the penetrating
dampness, had finally conquered the last resisting mosaic, and climbed
the walls, showing in blue and yellow streaks on the old-fashioned
moldings. There had been no fire in the tiled fireplace for many years;
Miss Margaretta did not approve of fires, and wood was costly: this last
reason, however, was never mentioned; and Gardis had grown into a girl
of sixteen before she knew the comfort of the sparkling little fires
that shine on the hearths morning and evening during the short winters
in well-appointed Southern homes. At that time she had spent a few days
in the city with some family friends who had come out of the war with
less impoverishment than their neighbors. Miss Margaretta did not
approve of them exactly; it was understood that all Southerners of "our
class" were "impoverished." She did not refuse the cordial invitation
_in toto_, but she sent for Gardis sooner than was expected, and set
about carefully removing from the girl's mind any wrong ideas that might
have made a lodgment there. And Gardis, warmly loving her aunt, and
imbued with all the family pride from her birth, immediately cast from
her the bright little comforts she had met in the city as plebeian, a