bond, the houses of Dorrance and Aylett. She knew, furthermore, that
Herbert Dorrance had travelled with the Ridgeley family for three
weeks in October, and that he had now been domesticated at the
homestead for ten days. Mrs. Aylett's show of fondness for him was
laughable, considering what an uninteresting specimen of masculinity
he was; but the handsome dame was too worldly-wise, too sage a judge
of quid pro quo, to entice him to waste so much of the time he was
addicted to announcing was money to him, for the sake of a good so
intangible as sisterly sentimentality.

Unless there were some substantial and remunerative ulterior object
to be gained by his tarrying in the neighborhood, cunning Rosa
believed that "dear Bertie" would have been packed off to Buffalo,
or whatever outlandish place he lived in, so soon as the bridal
festivities were over, and not showed his straw-colored whiskers
again in Virginia in three years, at least, instead of running down
to the plantation every three months.

"If such an ingredient as the compound, double-distilled essence of
flatness is to be infused into the wassail-cup, it is he who will
supply it!" thought the spicy damsel, with a bewitching shrug of the
plump shoulder nearest him, while engaged in a lively play of words
with a gentleman on her other hand. "What can possess Mabel to
encourage him systematically in her decorous style, passes my powers
of divination. Maybe she means to use him as a poultice for her
bruised heart. In that case, insipidity would be no objection."

Mabel had not the air of one whose heart is bruised or torn. That
she had gained in queenliness within the past year was not evidence
of austerity or the callousness that ensues upon the healing of a