the wealthiest heiress in the State.

Reared in a household which consisted of an elderly uncle and aunt,
and a middle-aged governess, Leo Gordon had never known intimate
association with younger people; and while her nature was gentle and
tranquil, she gradually imbibed the grave and rather prim ideas
which were in vogue when Miss Patty was the reigning belle of her
county. Although petted and indulged, she had not been spoiled, and
remained singularly free from the selfishness usually developed in
the character of an only child, nurtured in the midst of mature
relatives. When eighteen years old, Leo, accompanied by her
governess, Mrs. Eldridge, had been sent to New York and Boston for
educational advantages, which it was supposed that her own section
of the country could not supply; and subsequently the two went
abroad, gleaning knowledge in the great centres of European Art.
During their sojourn in Munich, Mrs. Eldridge died after a very
brief illness; and returning to her southern home, Leo found herself
the object of social homage.

Thoroughly well-bred, accomplished, graceful and pretty, she
commanded universal admiration; yet her manner was marked by a
quiet, grave dignity, and a peculiar reticence, at variance with the
prevailing type of young ladyhood, now alas! too dominant; whose
premature emancipation from home rule, and old-fashioned canons of
decorum renders "American girlhood" synonymous with flippant
pertness. Moulded by two women who were imbued with the spirit of
Richter's admonition: "Girls like the priestesses of old, should be
educated only in sacred places, and never hear, much less see, what
is rude, immoral or violent"; the pate tendre of Leo's character
showed unmistakably the potter's marks.