Buchanan's
responsibility for the recent panic, until the band, which Mr. Hopper had
stationed under the stairs, drowned their voices.

As we enter the room, there stands Virginia under the rainbowed prisms of
the great chandelier, receiving. But here was suddenly a woman of
twenty-eight, where only this evening we knew a slip of a girl. It was a
trick she had, to become majestic in a ball-gown. She held her head high,
as a woman should, and at her slender throat glowed the pearls of Dorothy
Manners.

The result of all this was to strike a little awe into the souls of many
of her playmates. Little Eugenie nearly dropped a curtsey. Belle Cluyme
was so impressed that she forgot for a whole hour to be spiteful. But
Puss Russell kissed her on both cheeks, and asked her if she really
wasn't nervous.

"Nervous!" exclaimed Jinny, "why?"

Miss Russell glanced significantly towards the doorway. But she said
nothing to her hostess, for fear of marring an otherwise happy occasion.
She retired with Jack Brim made to a corner, where she recited:--

"Oh young Lochinvar is come out of the East;
Of millions of Yankees I love him the least."

"What a joke if he should come!" cried Jack.

Miss Russell gasped.

Just as Mr. Clarence Colfax, resplendent in new evening clothes just
arrived from New York, was pressing his claim for the first dance with
his cousin in opposition to numerous other claims, the chatter of the
guests died away. Virginia turned her head, and for an instant the pearls
trembled on her neck. There was a young man cordially and unconcernedly
shaking hands with her father and Captain Lige. Her memory of that moment
is, strangely, not of his face (she did not deign to look at that), but
of the muscle of his shoulder half revealed as he stretched forth his
arm.

Young Mr. Colfax bent over to her ear.

"Virginia," he whispered earnestly, almost fiercely, Virginia, who
invited him here?"

"I did," said Virginia, calmly, "of course. Who invites any one here?"

"But!" cried Clarence, "do you know who he is?"

"Yes," she answered, "I know. And is that any reason why he should not
come here as a guest? Would you bar any gentleman from your house on
account of his convictions?"

Ah, Virginia, who had thought to hear that argument from your lips? What
would frank Captain Lige say of the consistency of women, if he heard you
now? And how give an account of yourself to Anne Brinsmade? What
contrariness h