ooner, with two of the et ceteras, made such unsteady
demonstrations at this that Mrs. Trevise protracted our sitting no
longer. She rose, and this meant rising for us all.

A sense of regret and incompleteness filled me, and finding the Briton
at my elbow as our company proceeded toward the sitting room, I said:
"Too bad!"

His whisper was confident. "We'll get the rest of it out of her yet."

But the rest of it came without our connivance.

In the sitting room Doctor Beaugarcon sat waiting, and at sight of Juno
entering the door (she headed our irregular procession) he sprang up
and lifted admiring hands. "Oh, why didn't I have an aunt like you!" he
exclaimed, and to Mrs. Trevise as she followed: "She pays her nephew's
poker debts."

"How much, cousin Tom?" asked the upcountry bride.

And the gay old doctor chuckled, as he kissed her: "Thirty dollars this
afternoon, my darling."

At this the Briton dragged me behind a door in the hall, and there we
danced together.

"That Mayrant chap will do," he declared; and we composed ourselves for
a proper entrance into the sitting room, where the introductions had
been made, and where Doctor Beaugarcon and Mrs. Braintree's husband had
already fallen into war reminiscences, and were discovering with mutual
amiability that they had fought against each other in a number of
battles.

"And you generally licked us," smiled the Union soldier.

"Ah! don't I know myself how it feels to run!" laughed the Confederate.
"Are you down at the club?"

But upon learning from the poetess that her ode was now to be read
aloud, Doctor Beaugarcon paid his fourth cousin's daughter a brief,
though affectionate, visit, lamenting that a very ill patient should
compel him to take himself away so immediately, but promising her
presently in his stead two visitors much more interesting.

"Miss Josephine St. Michael desires to call upon you," he said, "and I
fancy that her nephew will escort her."

"In all this rain?" said the bride.

"Oh, it's letting up, letting up! Good night, Mistress Trevise. Good
night, sir; I am glad to have met you." He shook hands with Mrs.
Braintree's husband. "We fellows," he whispered, "who fought in the war
have had war enough." And bidding the general company good night, and
kissing the bride again, he left us even as the poetess returned from
her room with the manuscript.

I soon wished that I had escaped with him, because I feared what Mrs.
Braintree migh