e Creole
class, mulattoes, quadroons and octoroons, Samboes with their wives in
loose skirts, white stockings, and pinnacle hats. There also passed, in
the streets, black servants with tin cases on their heads, or carrying
parcels in their arms, and here and there processions of servants, each
with something that belonged to their mistresses, who would presently be
attending the king's ball.

Snatches of song were heard, and voices of men who had had a full meal
and had "taken observations"--as looking through the bottom of a glass
of liquor was called by people with naval spirit--were mixed in careless
carousal.

All this jarred on Dyck Calhoun and gave revolt to his senses. Yet he
was only half-conscious of the great sensuousness of the scene as he
passed through it. Now and then some one doffed a hat to him, and very
occasionally some half-drunken citizen tossed at him a remark meant to
wound; but he took no notice, and let things pleasant and provocative
pass down the long ranges of indifference.

All was brought to focus at last, however, by their arrival at Charlotte
Bedford's lodgings, which, like most houses in the town, had a
lookout or belfry fitted with green blinds and a telescope, and had a
green-painted wooden railing round it.

At the very entrance, inside the gate, in the garden, they saw Sheila
Llyn, her mother, and Darius Boland, who seemed to be enduring from the
mother some sharp reprimand, to the amusement of the daughter. As the
gate closed behind Dyck and Michael, the three from Virginia turned
round and faced them. As Dyck came forward, Sheila flushed and trembled.
She was no longer a young girl, but her slim straightness and the soft
lines of her figure, gave her a dignity and charm which made her young
womanhood distinguished--for she was now twenty-five, and had a carriage
of which a princess might have been proud. Yet it was plain that the
entrance of Dyck at this moment was disturbing. It was not what she had
foreseen.

She showed no hesitation, however, but came forward to meet her visitor,
while Michael fell back, as also did Darius Boland. Both these seemed to
realize that the less they saw and heard the better; and they presently
got together in another part of the garden, as Dyck Calhoun came near
enough almost to touch Sheila.

Surely, he thought, she was supreme in appearance and design. She was
like some rare flower of the field, alert, gentle, strong, intrepid,
with buoyant