were a flower in her bosom. We children always looked forward to her

coming, because she was so gay and delightful to us, telling us stories
of the old times--old rides when the country was wild, old journeys with

the family and servants to the Hot Springs before the steam cars were
invented, old adventures, with the battle of New Orleans or a famous duel

in them--the sort of stories that begin with (for you seem to know
something of it yourself, sir) 'Your grandfather, my dear John, the year

that he was twenty, got himself into serious embarrassments through pay-
ing his attentions to two reigning beauties at once.' She was full of

stories which began in that sort of pleasant way."
I said: "When a person like that dies, an impoverishment falls upon us;

the texture of life seems thinner."
"Oh, yes, indeed! I know what you mean--to lose the people one has always

seen from the cradle. Well, she has gone away, she has taken her memories
out of the world, the old times, the old stories. Nobody, except a little

nutshell of people here, knows or cares anything about her any more; and
soon even the nutshell will be empty." He paused, and then, as if

brushing aside his churchyard mood, he translated into his changed
thought another classicquotation: "But we can't dawdle over the 'tears

of things'; it's Nature's law. Only, when I think of the rice-banks and
the boots and the pistol, I wonder if the Newport ladies, for all their

high-balls, could do any better!"
The crimson had faded, the twilight was altogether come, but the little

noiseless breeze was blowing still; and as we left the quiet tombs behind
us, and gained Worship Street, I could not help looking back where slept

that older Kings Port about which I had heard and had said so much. Over
the graves I saw the roses, nodding and moving, as if in acquiescent

revery.
VII: The Girl Behind the Counter--II

"Which of them is idealizing?" This was the question that I asked myself,
next morning, in my boarding-house, as I dressed for breakfast; the next

morning is--at least I have always found it so--an excellent time for
searching questions; and to-day I had waked up no longer beneath the

strong, gentle spell of the churchyard. A bright sun was shining over the
eastern waters of the town, I could see from my upper veranda the

thousand flashes of the waves; the steam yacht rode placidly and
competently among them, while a coastwise steamer was sailing by her, out

to sea, to Savannah, or New York; the general world was going on, and--
which of them was idealizing? It mightn't be so bad, after all. Hadn't I,

perhaps, over-sentimentalized to myself the case of John Mayrant? Hadn't
I imagined for him ever so much more anxiety than the boy actually felt?

For people can idealize down just as readily as they can idealize up. Of
Miss Hortense Rieppe I had now two partial portraits--one by the

displeased aunts, the other by their chivalric nephew; in both she held
between her experienced lips, a cigarette; there the similarity ceased.

And then, there was the toboggan fire-escape. Well, I must meet the
living original before I could decide whether (for me, at any rate) she

was the "brute" as seen by the eyes of Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, or the
"really nice girl" who was going to marry John Mayrant on Wednesday week.

Just at this point my thoughts brought up hard again at the cake. No; I
couldn't swallow that any better this morning than yesterday afternoon!

Allow the gentleman to pay for the feast! Better to have omitted all
feast; nothing simpler, and it would have been at least dignified, even

if arid. But then, there was the lady (a cousin or an aunt--I couldn't
remember which this morning) who had told me she wasn't solicitous. What

did she mean by that? And she had looked quite queer when she spoke about
the phosphates. Oh, yes, to be sure, she was his intimate aunt! Where, by

the way, was Miss Rieppe?
By the time I had eaten my breakfast and walked up Worship Street to the

post-office I was full of it all again; my searching thoughts hadn't
simplified a single point. I always called for my mail at the

post-office, because I got it sooner; it didn't come to the
boarding-house before I had departed on my quest for royal blood,

whereas, this way, I simply got my letters at the corner of Court and
Worship streets and walked diagonally across and down Court a few steps

to my researches, which I could vary and alleviate by reading and
answering news from home.

It was from Aunt Carola that I heard to-day. Only a little of what she
said will interest you. There had been a delightful meeting of the

Selected Salic Scions. The Baltimore Chapter had paid her Chapter a
visit. Three ladies and one very highly connected young gentleman had

come--an encouragingly full and enthusiastic meeting. They had lunched
upon cocoa, sherry, and croquettes, after which all had been more than

glad to listen to a paper read by a descendant of Edward the Third and
the young gentleman, a descendant of Catherne of Aragon, had recited a

beautiful original poem, entitled "My Queen Grandmother." Aunt Carola
regretted that I could not have had the pleasure and the benefit of this

meeting, the young gentleman had turned out to be, also, a refined and
tasteful musician, playing, upon the piano a favorite gavotte of Louis

the Thirteenth "And while you are in Kings Port," my aunt said; "I expect
you to profit by associating with the survivors of our good American

society--people such as one could once meet everywhere when I was young,
but who have been destroyed by the invasion of the proletariat. You are

in the last citadel of good-breeding. By the way, find out, if you can,
if any of the Bombo connection are extant; as through them I should like,

if possible, to establish a chapter of the Scions in South Carolina. Have
you, met a Miss Rieppe, a decidedlystriking young woman, who says she is

from Kings Port, and who recently passed through here with a very common
man dancing attendance on her? He owns the Hermana, and she is said to be

engaged to him."
This wasn't as good as meeting Miss Rieppe myself; but the new angle at

which I got her from my Aunt was distinctly a contribution toward the
young woman's likeness; I felt that I should know her at sight, if ever

she came within seeing distance. And it would be entertaining to find
that she was a Bombo; but that could wait; what couldn't wait was the

Hermana. I postponed the Fannings, hurried by the door where they waited
for me, and, coming to the end of Court Street, turned to the right and

sought among the wharves the nearest vista that could give me a view of
the harbor. Between the silent walls of commerce desolated, and by the

empty windows from which Prosperity once looked out, I threaded my way to
a point upon the town's eastern edge. Yes, that was the steam yacht's

name: the Hermana. I didn't make it out myself, she lay a trifle too far
from shore; but I could read from a little fluttering pennant that her

owner was not on board; and from the second loafer whom I questioned I
learned, besides her name, that she had come from New York here to meet

her owner, whose name he did not know and whose arrival was still
indefinite. This was not very much to find out; but it was so much more

than I had found out about the Fannings that, although I now faithfully
returned to my researches, and sat over open books until noon, I couldn't

tell you a word of what I read. Where was Miss Rieppe, and where was the
owner of the Hermana? Also, precisely how ill was the hero of

Chattanooga, her poor dear father?
At the Exchange I opened the door upon a conversation which, in

consequence, broke off abruptly; but this much I came in for:--
"Nothing but the slightest bruise above his eye. The other one is in

bed."
It was the severe lady who said this; I mean that lady who, among all the

severe ones I had met, seemed capable of the highest exercise of this
quality, although she had not exercised it in my presence. She looked, in

her veil and her black street dress, as aloof, and as coldlyscornful of
the present day, as she had seemed when sitting over her embroidery; but

it was not of 1818, or even 1840, that she had been talking just now: it
was this morning that somebody was bruised, somebody was in bed.

The handsome lady acknowledged my salutation completely, but not
encouragingly, and then, on the threshold, exchanged these parting

sentences with the girl behind the counter:--
"They will have to shake hands. He was not very willing, but he listened

to me. Of course, the chastisement was right--but it does not affect my
opinion of his keeping on with the position."