uable turn in the health of her poor dear father. But she
had worn it out, his health, by playing it for decidedly as much as it
could bear; it couldn't be used again without risk; the date must stand
fixed; and, uneasy as she might have begun to be about John, Hortense
must, with no shortening of the course, get her boat in safe without
smashing it against either John or Charley. I wondered a little that she
should feel any uncertainty about her affianced lover. She must know how
much his word was to him, and she had had his word twice, given her
the second time to put his own honor right with her on the score of the
phosphates. But perhaps Hortense's rich experiences of life had taught
her that a man's word to a woman should not be subjected to the test
of another woman's advent. On the whole, I suppose it was quite natural
those flowers should annoy her, and equally natural that Eliza, the
minx, should allow them to do so! There's a joy to the marrow in
watching your enemy harried and discomfited by his own gratuitous
contrivances; you look on serenely at a show which hasn't cost you a
groat. However, poor Eliza had not been so serene at the very end,
when she stormed out at me. For this I did not have to forgive her, of
course, little as I had merited such treatment. Had she not accepted my
flowers? But it was a gratification to reflect that in my sentimental
passages with her I had not gone to any great length; nothing, do I ever
find, is so irksome as the sense of having unwittingly been in a false
position. Was John, on his side, in love with her? Was it possible he
would fail in his word? So with these thoughts, while answering and
accepting Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael's invitation to make one of a
party of strangers to whom she was going to show another old Kings Port
church, "where many of my ancestors lie," as her note informed me, I
added one sentence which had nothing to do with the subject "She is a
steel wasp," I ventured to say. And when on the next afternoon I met the
party at the church, I received from the little lady a look of highly
spiced comprehension as she gently remarked, "I was glad to get your
acceptance."

When I went down to the dinner-table, Juno sat in her best clothes,
still discussing the Daughters of Dixie.

I can't say that I took much more heed of this at dinner than I had
done at tea; but I was interested to hear Juno mention that she, too,
intended to call upon Hortense Rieppe. King