Pinckney. "I have accounts at hosts of
places. The carriage is ordered to take you to the station: will you be
ready, dear, at ten o'clock?"
Miss Featherstone looked at her watch and hurried to her room.
It was snowing when she returned from New York: great flakes fell on
her as she stepped, loaded with bundles, out of the carriage. The
children met her with joyful whoops at the front door: "Oh, here's
clear little Miss Featherstone, and we know she's got our Christmas
presents.--You can't deny it. Hurrah!"
They dragged her into the dining-room, where the table, decked with
flowers, was handsomely arranged for dinner. A blazing wood-fire roared
on the hearth: in front of it stood a tall, handsome man with a
military air. He was dark, with brilliant eyes, a certain regularity of
features, and, as his passport declared, his hair was dark brown and
curly. Colonel Pinckney looked haughty and impenetrable, as his
sister-in-law had described him. Mrs. Pinckney, exquisitely dressed,
reclined in a large chair by the corner of the fireplace: she held up a
pretty fan to screen her face from the heat, and was talking gayly to
her brother-in-law. At a table in a corner Mr.
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