slave market.

Then the remains of the building that had once been the old Planters Hotel
held Phyl like a wizard whilst Pinckney explained its history. Here in the
old days the travelling carriages had drawn up, piled with the luggage of
fine folk on a visit to Charleston on business or pleasure. The Planters
was known all through the Georgias and Virginia, all through the States in
the days when General Washington and John C. Calhoun were living figures.

The ghost of the place held Phyl's imagination. Just as Meeting Street
seemed filled with friendly old memories on her first entering it, so did
the air around the ruins of the "Planters."

Then having paused to admire the gouty pillars of St. Michael's they went
into the church.

The silence of an empty church is a thing apart from all other silences in
the world. Deeper, more complete, more filled with voices.

As they were entering a negro caretaker engaged in dusting and tidying let
something fall, and as the silence closed in on the faint echo that
followed the sound they stopped, just by the font to look around them.
Here the spirit of spring was not. The shafts of sunlight through the
windows lit the old fashioned box pews, the double decked pulpit, and the
font crowned with the dove with the light of long ago. Sunday mornings of
the old time assuredly had found sanctuary here and the old congregations
had not yet quite departed.

The occasional noise of the caretaker as he moved from pew to pew scarcely
disturbed the tranquillity, the scene was set beyond the reach of the
sounds and daily affairs of this world, and the actors held in a medium
unshakable as that which holds the ghostly life of bees in amber and birds
in marqueterie.

"That was George Washington's pew," whispered Pinckney, "at least the one
he sat in once. That's the old Pinckney pew, belonged to Bures--other
people sit there now. This is our pew--Vernons. The Mascarenes had it in
the old days, of course."

Phyl looked at the pew where Juliet Mascarene had sat often enough, no
doubt, whilst the preacher had preached on the vanity of life, on the
delusions of the world and the shortness of Time.

Many an eloquent divine had stood in the pulpit of St. Michael's, but none
have ever preached a sermon so poignant, so real, so searching as that
which the old church preaches to those who care to hear.

They turned to go.

Outside Phyl was silent and Pinckney seemed occupied by thoughts of