ing with your dream of England and the past, and
making of the whole a charm beyond words.

That is Charleston.

Set against the panelling and almost covering it in parts were prints,
wood-cuts, engravings, portraits in black and white.

Here was a silhouette of Colonel Vernon, the founder of the house, and
another of his wife. Here was an early portrait of Jeff Davis,
hollow-cheeked and goatee-bearded, and here was Mayflower, the property of
Colonel Seth Mascarene, the fastest trotting horse in Virginia, worshipped
by her owner whose portrait hung alongside.

Phyl glanced at these pictures as she followed Miss Pinckney, who opened
doors shewing the dining-room, a room rather heavily furnished, hung with
portraits of long-faced gentlemen and ladies of old time, and then the
drawing-room. A real drawing-room of the Sixties, a thing preserved in its
entirety, in all its original stiffness, interesting as a valentine,
perfumed like an old rosewood cabinet.

Keepsakes and Books of Beauty lay on the centre table, a gilt clock
beneath a glass shade marked the moment when it had ceased to keep time
over twenty-five years ago, the antimacassars on the armchairs were not a
line out of position; not a speck of dust lay anywhere, and the Dresden
shepherds and shepherdesses simpered and made love in the same old
fashion, preserving unaltered the sentiment of spring, the suggestion of
Love, lambs, and the song of birds.

"It's just as it used to be," said Miss Pinckney. "Nothing at all has been
changed, and I dust it myself. I would just as soon let a servant loose
here with a duster as I'd let one of the buzzards from the market-place
loose in the larder. Those water-colours were done by Mary Mascarene,
Juliet's sister, who died when she was fifteen; they mayn't be
masterpieces but they're Mary's, and worth more'n if they were covered
with gold. Mrs. Beamis sniffed when she came in here--she's the woman
whose trunk got loose on the stairs I told you about--sniffed as if the
place smelt musty. She's got a husband who's made a million dollars out of
dry goods in Chicago, and she thought the room wanted re-furnishing.
Didn't say it, but I knew. A player-piano is what she wanted. Didn't say
it, but _I_ knew. Umph!"

Miss Pinckney, having shown Phyl out, looked round the room as if to make
sure that all the familiar ghosts were in their places, then she shut the
door with a snap, and turning, led the way upstairs murmuring to her