The two old ladies blushed and cast down their eyes, as they did every
evening at the same kindly by-play. "You know I am very glad to be of use,
my dear Julia," returned Miss Pussy, with conscious virtue. Miss Lydia, who
was tall and delicate and bent with the weight of potential sanctity, shook
her silvery head and folded her exquisite old hands beneath the ruffles of
her muslin under-sleeves. She wore her hair in shining folds beneath her
thread-lace cap, and her soft brown eyes still threw a youthful lustre over
the faded pallor of her face.

"Pussy has always had a wonderful talent for preserving," she murmured
plaintively. "It makes me regret my own uselessness."

"Uselessness!" warmly protested the Governor. "My dear Miss Lydia, your
mere existence is a blessing to mankind. A lovely woman is never useless,
eh, Brother Bill?"

Mr. Bill, a stout and bashful gentleman, who never wasted words, merely
bowed over his plate, and went on with his supper. There was a theory in
the family--a theory romantic old Miss Lydia still hung hard by--that Mr.
Bill's peculiar apathy was of a sentimental origin. Nearly thirty years
before he had made a series of mild advances to his second cousin, Virginia
Ambler--and her early death before their polite vows were plighted had, in
the eyes of his friends, doomed the morose Mr. Bill to the position of a
perpetual mourner.

Now, as he shook his head and helped himself to chicken, Miss Lydia sighed
in sympathy.

"I am afraid Mr. Bill must find us very flippant," she offered as a gentle
reproof to the Governor.