en smoked
slowly and reflectively, the women sat with folded hands, watching the
last glow upon the hills, and the brightening of the evening star;
dreamily listening to the choir of frogs, the faint tinkle of cowbells,
the bleating of folded lambs, and the continual rustle of the poplar
leaves.

Jacqueline took her seat beside Unity. Colonel Churchill, in his
especial chair, was smoking like a benevolent volcano; at a small table
Major Edward was playing Patience. On the broad porch steps below
Jacqueline and Unity half sat, half lay, the two Carys. The fireflies
were beginning to show, and out of the distance came a plaintive
_Whip-poor-will--Whip-poor-will!_

"I shall have," said Ludwell Cary, "the vines at Greenwood trained like
these. There could be no better way."

"Is the drawing-room finished?" asked Unity.

"Almost finished. The paper came to-day from Baltimore. The ground is
silver, and there are garlands of roses and a host of piping shepherds."

"Oh, lovely!" cried Unity. "But no shepherdesses?"

"Yes, in among the roses. It is quite Arcadian. When will the princesses
come to see the shepherdesses?"

He looked at them both. "The Princess and her waiting-maid," said Unity
demurely, "will come very soon." She rose from the green bench. "The
waiting-maid is going now to her harpsichord!" Her eyes rested upon the
younger Cary. "Will you be so very good as to turn the leaves for me?"

Fairfax Cary embracing with alacrity the chance of goodness, the two
went into the house. The dusk deepened; the odour of honeysuckle and
syringa grew heavier, and white moths sailed by on their way to the
lighted windows.

"Since love--since love is blissful sorrow,
Then bid the lad--then bid the lad--
Then bid the lad a fair good morrow!"

flowed in soprano from the parlour.

Colonel Churchill laid down his pipe and lifted his burly figure from
the great chair. "I forgot," he remarked to Jacqueline, "to tell your
Aunt Nancy that Charles Carter is going to marry Miss Lewis," and he
left the porch. The rose in the sky turned to pearl, the fireflies grew
brilliant, and the wind brought the murmur of streams and the louder
rustling of the poplar leaves. "It is too dark to see the cards," said
Major Edward. "I'll go read what the Gazette has to say of Burr and the
Massachusetts secession fools. Don't move, Cary!" He deftly gathered up
the cards, and went indoors.

"When I was green in years, and ever