Around Miss Lamarque, the lady of whom Major Favraud had spoken so
admiringly, and to whose kindness he had committed me, a group had
gathered, chiefly of the young, not to be surpassed in any land for
manly bearing, graceful feminine beauty, gayety, wit, and refinement.

There was Helen Oscanyan, fair as a dream of Greece, in her serene,
marble perfectness of form and feature; and the lovely Mollie Cairns,
her cousin, small, dark, and sparkling--both under the care of that
stately gentleman, their uncle, Julius Sevère, of Savannah; and there
were the sisters Percy, twins in age and appearance, with voices like
brook-ripples, and eyes like wood-violets, and feet of Chinese
minuteness and French perfection--the darlings and only joys of a mother
still beautiful, though sad in her widowhood, and gentle as the dove
that mourns its mate.

There was the brilliant Ralph Maxwell, whose jests, stinging and slight,
just glanced over the surface of society without inflicting a wound,
even as the skater's heel glides over ice, leaving its mark as it goes,
yet breaking no crust of frost; and there was the poetic dreamer
Dartmore, with his large, dark eyes, and moonlight face, and manner of
suffering serenity, on his way to put forth for fame, as he fondly
believed, his manuscript epic on the "Sorrows of the South."

All these, and more, were there gathering about the leader of their
home-society, on that alien deck, as securely as though they were
sitting in her own drawing-room at "Berthold," on one of her brilliant
reception-evenings.

How could they know--how could they dream the truth--or descry the