ve.

Every day at five o'clock, weather permitting, Miss Pinckney took an
airing. She was one of the sights of Charleston, she, and the dark
chestnut horses driven by Abraham the coloured coachman, and the barouche
in which she drove; a carriage of other times, one of those deathless
conveyances turned out in Long Acre in the days when varnish was varnish
and hand labour had not been ousted by machinery. It was painted in a
basket-work pattern, the pattern peculiar to the English Royal carriages,
and the whole turn-out had an excellence and a style of its own--a thing
unpurchasable as yesterday.

They drove in the direction of the Battery and here they drew up to look
at the view. On one side of them stood the great curving row of mansions
facing the sea, old Georgian houses and houses more modern, yet without
offence, set in gardens where the palmetto leaves shivered in the sea wind
and the pink mimosa mixed its perfume with the salt-scented air. On the
other side lay the sea. Afternoon, late afternoon, is the time of all
times to visit this spacious and sunlit place. It is then that the old
ghosts return, if ever they return, to discuss the news brought by the
last packet from England, the doings of Mr. Pitt, the Paris fashions.

Looking seaward they would see no change in the changeless sea and little
change in the city if they turned their eyes that way.

Miss Pinckney got out and they walked a bit, inspecting the guns, each
with its brass plate and its story.

Far away in the haze stood Fort Sumter,--a fragment of history, a sea
warrior of the past, voiceless and guarding forever the viewless. It may
have been some recollection of the Brighton front and of the great harbour
of Kingstown with the sun upon it, and all this seemed vaguely familiar to
Phyl, pleasantly familiar and homely. She breathed the sea air deeply and
then, as she turned, glancing towards the land, a recollection came to her
of the story she had been reading that evening in the library at
Kilgobbin--"The Gold Bug." It was near here that Legrand had found the
treasure. He had come to Charleston to buy the mattocks and picks--no, it
was Jupp the negro who had come to buy them.

She turned to Miss Pinckney.

"Did you ever read a story called 'The Gold Bug' by Edgar Allan Poe?" she
asked. "It is about a place near here--Sullivan's Island--that's it--I
remember now."

"Why, I knew him," said Miss Pinckney.

"Knew Edgar Allan Poe!" said Phyl.