"Certainly. I have been talking for twenty minutes." I was now presented
to Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael, also old, also charming, in widow's dress
no less in the bloom of age than Mrs. Gregory, but whiter and very
diminutive. She shyly welcomed me to Kings Port. "Take him home with
you, Julia. We pulled your bell three times, and it's too damp for you to
be out. Don't forget," Mrs. Gregory said to me, "that you haven't told me
a word about your Aunt Carola, and that I shall expect you to come and do
it." She went slowly away from us, up the East Place, tall, graceful,
sweeping into the distance like a ship. No haste about her dignified
movement, no swinging of elbows, nothing of the present hour!

"What a beautiful girl she must have been!" I murmured aloud,
unconsciously.

"No, she was not a beauty in her youth," said my new guide in her shy
voice, "but always fluent, always a wit. Kings Port has at times thought
her tongue too downright. We think that wit runs in her family, for young
John Mayrant has it; and her first-cousin-once-removed put the Earl of
Mainridge in his place at her father's ball in 1840. Miss Beaufain (as
she was then) asked the Earl how he liked America; and he replied, very
well, except for the people, who were so vulgar. 'What can you expect?'
said Miss Beaufain; 'we're descended from the English.' I am very sorry
for Maria--for Mrs. St. Michael--just at present. Her young cousin, John
Mayrant, is making an alliance deeply vexatious to her. Do you happen to
know Miss Hortense Rieppe?"

I had never heard of her.

"No? She has been North lately. I thought you might have met her. Her
father takes her North, I believe, whenever any one will invite them.