y treat his kind uncle's wishes--reasonably. With
the cup half lifted he harkened. From a hidden walk and bower close on
the garden side of this vine-mantled fence sounded footsteps and voices:

"But, Fred! where on earth did she get--let's sit in here--get that
rich, belated, gradual smile?"

A memory thrilled the listening General. "From her mother," thought he,
and listened on.

"It's like," continued his nephew--"I'll tell you what it's like. It's
like--Now, let me alone! You see, one has to _learn_ her beauty--by
degrees. You know, there _is_ a sort of beauty that flashes on you at
first sight, like--like the blaze of a ball-room. I was just now
thinking of a striking instance--"

"From Mobile? You always are."

"No such thing! Say, Fred, I'll tell you what Miss Anna's smile is like.
It's as if you were trying--say in a telescope--for a focus, and at last
all at once it comes and--there's your star!"

The Northerner softly assented.

"Fred! Fancy Flora Valcour with that smile!"

"No! Hilary Kincaid, I think you were born to believe in every feminine
creature God ever made. No wonder they nickname you as they do. Now,
some girls are quite too feminine for me."

In his own smoke the General's eyes opened aggressively. But hark! His
nephew spoke again:

"Fred, if you knew all that girl has done for that boy and that
grandmother--It may sound like an overstatement, but you must have
observed--"

"That she's a sort of overstatement herself?"

"Go to grass! _Your_ young lady's not even an understatement; she's only
a profound pause. See here! what time is it? I prom--"

On the uncle's side of the fence a quick step brought a newcomer, a
Creole of maybe twenty-nine years, member of his new staff, in bright
uniform:

"Ah, General, yo' moze ob-edient! Never less al-lone then when al-lone?
'T is the way with myseff--"

He seemed not unrefined, though of almost too mettlesome an eye; in
length of leg showing just the lack, in girth of waist just the excess,
to imply a better dignity on horseback and to allow a proud tailor to
prove how much art can overcome. Out on the road a liveried black
coachman had halted an open carriage, in which this soldier had arrived
with two ladies. Now these bowed delightedly from it to the General,
while Kincaid and his friend stood close hid and listened agape, equally
amused and dismayed.

"How are you, Mandeville?" said the General. "I am not nearly as much
alone as I se