Lady Baltimore

ismiss from my service such a cowardly circumlocution, and squarely say that I neglected the Cowpens during certain days which now followed. Nay, more; I totally deserted them. Although I fee

ot yet brought me one single nibble--and I gave up the sad sport for a while. The beautiful weather took me out of doors over the land, and also over the water, for I am a great lover of sailin

the counter was not there. I found in her stead, it is true, a most polite lady, who provided me with chocolate and sandwiches that were just as good as their predecessors; but she was of advanced years, and little in

eagerness for the bride, who is a steel wasp--that is not enough to learn of such nuptials. Therefore I fear--I mean, I know--that it was not whol

had embroidered and had not liked the freedom with which her sister had spoken to me ab

ual voice, which I thought very well tuned for the purpose, "What part of Geo

that I mention

St. Michael. "I never heard

s. But the severe lady a

t agreeable letter fro

ory St. Michael, and d

lady contin

formance of the Lohengrin. Can you te

t was a composition

n my day the works of the Italians were much applauded. But I d

y inquiries in much the same sort of way as had the lady who admired Mozart. They spoke delightfully of travel, books, people, and of the colonial renown of Kings Port and its leading families; but it is scarce an exaggera

y follies might have been saved the youth. His aunt, Miss Eliza St. Michael, though a pattern of good

e seen in Kings Port. Their house (if it had ever been their own property, which I heard hotly argued both ways) had been sold more than two years ago, and their recent brief sojourns in the town were generally beneath the roof of hospitable friends--people by the name of Cornerly, "whom we do not know," as I was carefully informed by more than one member of the St. Michael f

the Pied Piper had passed through here and lured them magically away to some distant country. It was on the happy day that saw Miss Eliza La Heu

on the next time. That confection, "Lady Baltimore," about which I was not to worry mys

hout any preliminaries, was he

d and blessed an absence of lunch customers as prevailing as the trade winds; the people I

d in with the ob

finit

nly Wednes

ill it

, the idea!" And she laughed at me from the imm

have to pa

t going to make

nd of thing would keep,"

over. "Which kind of thing

joyously together amid the silence and wares for sale, the painted cup

o my liking than the verbal skirmish, and therefore I began one immedi

s merely a very bland

im--her--it! Since you practically live in the

"It's all, you know, s

lot of it is

l me what you know about it," she

y mean to have your educati

t up anywhere. We had

ere, over my chocolate and sandwiches, I brought out my gleaned and arranged knowledge which rang out across the distance, comically, like a lecture. She, at her counter, now and then busy with her ledger, received it with the attentive solemnity of a lecture. The l

?" she aske

," I an

ink of such a young

think of such

e. "Yes, yes, but th

. "Oh, if you come

ng to be doing su

simple--when t

ou'll agree?--are always

he's foolish!" she frankly stated. "

Jose

-aunt--the lady who embroidered. She

bout it. But don't you t

aken my

think he's foolish isn't m

im? Sin

onement. I take it he

't suppose we discusse

nly must have seen how he looked (he can blush, you know, hand

day week? Of course he said why. Her poor,

be an anxiety for

merriment. "But he does," she then

med. "Then you

in to the bland,

ined, "even to his intimate Au

e," she commented, in

, "who could--not too directly,

to be simple," she ret

re in love," I reminde

more to-day?" she inquired i

pens long ago, and I'll just say this--since you asked me what I thought of him--tha

he broke i

in South Carolina that I'

tently. "Oh, you mustn't accept us because of our ancestors. That's how

pretend you're not perfectly satisfied--a

nd anything!" s