hen you go upstairs, if Easter has done as I told her, you
will see a primrose dress with blue coin-flowers on your bed. Daniel
thought you might like that, too, for a keepsake. Dorothy Manners wore it
in London, when she was a girl."

And so Virginia ran and threw her arms about her father's neck, and
kissed him again and again. And lest the Captain feel badly, she laid his
India shawl beside her; and the necklace upon it.

What a joyful supper they had,--just the three of them! And as the fresh
roses filled the room with fragrance, Virginia filled it with youth and
spirits, and Mr. Carvel and the Captain with honest, manly merriment. And
Jackson plied Captain Brent (who was a prime favorite in that house) with
broiled chicken and hot beat biscuits and with waffles, until at length
he lay back in his chair and heaved a sigh of content, lighting a cigar.
And then Virginia, with a little curtsey to both of them, ran off to
dress for the party.

"Well," said Captain Brent, "I reckon there'll be gay goings-on here
to-night. I wouldn't miss the sight of 'em, Colonel, for all the cargoes
on the Mississippi. Ain't there anything I can do?"

"No, thank you, Lige," Mr. Carvel answered. "Do you remember, one morning
some five years ago, when I took in at the store a Yankee named Hopper?
You didn't like him, I believe."

Captain Brent jumped, and the ashes of his cigar fell on his coat. He had
forgotten his conversation with Captain Grant.

"I reckon I do," he said dryly.

For a moment he was on the point of telling the affair. Then he desisted.
He could not be sure of Eliphalet from Grant's description. So he decided
to await a better time. Captain Brent was one to make sure of his channel
before going ahead.

"Well," continued the Colonel, "I have been rather pushed the last week,
and Hopper managed things for this dance. He got the music, and saw the
confectioner. But he made such a close bargain with both of 'em that they
came around to me afterward," he added, laughing.

"Is he coming here to-night?" demanded the Captain, looking disgusted.

"Lige," replied the Colonel, "you never do get over a prejudice. Yes,
he's coming, just to oversee things. He seems to have mighty little
pleasure, and he's got the best business head I ever did see. A Yankee,"
said Mr. Carvel, meditatively, as he put on his hat, "a Yankee, when he
will work, works like all possessed. Hood don't like him any more than
you do, but he allows Hop