They have sometimes managed to make it extend through an unbroken year.
Newport, I am credibly informed, greatly admires her. We in Kings Port
have never (except John Mayrant, apparently) seen anything in her beauty,
which Northerners find so exceptional."

"What is her type?" I inquired.

"I consider that she looks like a steel wasp. And she has the assurance
to call herself a Kings Port girl. Her father calls himself a general,
and it is repeated that he ran away at the battle of Chattanooga. I hope
you will come to see me another day, when you can spare time from the
battle of Cowpens. I am Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael, the other lady is Mrs.
Gregory St. Michael. I wonder if you will keep us all straight?" And
smiling, the little lady, whose shy manner and voice I had found to veil
as much spirit as her predecessor's, dismissed me and went up her steps,
letting herself into her own house.

The boy in question, the boy of the cake, John Mayrant, was coming out of
the gate at which I next rang. The appearance of his boyish figure and
well-carried head struck me anew, as it had at first; from his whole
person one got at once a strangely romantic impression. He looked at me,
made as if he would speak, but passed on. Probably he had been hearing as
much about me as I had been hearing about him. At this house the black
servant had not gone home for the night, and if the mistress had been out
to take a look at the steam yacht, she had returned.

"My sister," she said, presenting me to a supremely fine-looking old
lady, more chiselled, more august, than even herself. I did not catch
this lady's name, and she confined herself to a distant, though perhaps
not unfriendly, greeting. She was sitting by a work-table, and she