"Everybody likes her," he said, complacently. "I don't know a more
popular person anywhere. She is the life of the neighborhood; people
come to her for everything, if they want to get a new door-mat for the
school-house, or if they want a new man nominated for the legislature. I
think she's awfully bored, sometimes, but she keeps it to herself. But
though the summer is her rest, she always does enough to tire out
anybody else. Now, for instance, she is going to have three young ladies
with her for the next two months (besides yourself, Miss d'Estrée), whom
she will have to be amusing all the time, and some friends of mine who
will turn the house inside out. But Sophie never grumbles."

"Tell me about them all," I said, consuming with a fever of curiosity.

"O, I forgot you did not know them. Shall I begin with the young
ladies?--(Sam, there's a stone in Jerry's off fore-foot; get down and
look about it--Steady!--there, I knew it)--Excuse me, Miss d'Estrée.
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