I dedicate this book to the memory of my friend,


THOMAS ALEXANDER SEDDON.




PRINCESS.


CHAPTER I.

When the idea of a removal to Virginia was first mooted in the family
of General Percival Smith, ex-Brigadier in the United States service,
it was received with consternation and a perfect storm of disapproval.
The young ladies, Norma and Blanche, rose as one woman--loud in
denunciation, vehement in protest--fell upon the scheme, and verbally
sought to annihilate it. The country! A farm!! The South!!! The
idea was untenable, monstrous. Before their outraged vision floated
pictures whereof the foreground was hideous with cows, and snakes, and
beetles; the middle distance lurid with discomfort, corn-bread, and
tri-weekly mails; the background lowering with solitude, ennui, and
colored servants.

Rusticity, nature, sylvan solitudes, and all that, were exquisite bound
in Russia, with gold lettering and tinted leaves; wonderfully alluring
viewed at leisure with the gallery to one's self, and the light at the
proper angle, charmingly attractive behind the footlights, but in