Lady Baltimore

cumstances that I have attempted to indicate; the bright spot ought to shine over the wh

ople who were like that great society of the world, the high society of distinguished men and women who exist no more, but who touched history with a light hand, and left their mark upon it in a host of memoirs and letters that we read to-day with a starved and home-sick longing in the midst of our sullen welter of democracy. With its silent houses and gardens, its silent streets, its silent vistas of the blue water in the sunshine, this beautiful, sad place was winning my heart and making it ache. Nowhere else in America such charm, such character, such true elegance as here--and nowhere else such an overwhelming sense of finality!--the doom of a civilization founded upon a crime. And yet,

ut all unanimously wearing that expression of remarkable virtue which seems always to visit, when he goes to church, the average good fellow who is no better than he should be. I became, myself, filled with this same decorous inconsistency, and was singing the hymn, when I caught sight of John Mayrant. What lady was he with? It was just this that most annoyingly I couldn't make out, because the unlucky disposition of things hid it. I caught myself craning my neck and singing the hymn simultaneously and with no difficulty, because all my childhood was in that hymn; I couldn't tell when I hadn't known words and music by heart. Who was she? I tried for a clear view when we sat down, and also, let me confess, when we knelt down; I saw even less of her so; and my hope at the end of the service was dashed by her slow but entire disappearance amid the engulfing exits of the other ladies. I followed where I imagined she had gone, out by a side door, into the beautiful graveyard; but among the flowers and monuments she was not, nor was he; and next I saw, through the iron gate, John Mayrant in the street, walking with his intimate aunt and her more severe s

yself--if he will permit me?" This last was a question put to me with a courteous

uld consider myself u

are my people," he s

respectful, disappointed. "Some of 'em my p

see a box somewhere," I said, "with somethi

xtreme African merriment and ambled away. "You needn't have done it," protested the Southerner, and I naturally

out stopping to think that we had never yet exchanged a word; both of us were now brought up short, and it was the cake that was speaking volubly in our self-conscious dumbness. It was only after this brief, deep gap of things unsaid that John Mayrant came to the surface again,

s, like a road, up hill and down dale to a perfect acquaintance. No, not perfect, but delightful; to th

out Kings Port and me; had he understoo

as equally

hat it seems a stranger's destiny always to hear in a place new to him: he apologized for the weather--so c

I have always said that if March could be cut out of our Northern climate, as the core is cut out of an app

ntion. He assured me that the Southern September hurricane was more deplorable than a

tested; "with your roses out-of-

u pay us a hi

y. "If the truth

es," he now admitted with

your old ones!

heart. But, thus pictured to him, the old ladies brought a further idea quite plain

for anybody--man or woman--who could not, o

hat he himself didn't care to be the "occasion" upon which an old lady rose should try her

-heels of eighteenth-century procedure, and for just as long as his Southern up-bringing inclined him to wear

ntry, seen any churchyard comparable to this one; happy, serene dead, to sleep amid such blossoms and consecration! Good taste prevailed here; distinguished men lay beneath memorial stones that came no higher than your waist or shoulder; there was a total absence of obscure grocers reposing under gigantic obelisks; to earn a monument here you must win a battle, or do, at any rate, something more than adulterate sugar and

ut I am descended from this man, too. He was a statesman, and some of his brilliant powers were inheri

John Mayrant!" I cried. "Don't you tell me that. Last

the path to which we had wandered back--and I sat flat down opposite him. The venerabl

red. "Mas' John, don't you get too scandalou

onsible, Daddy Ben. I'm being jus

d the showing off of the graveyard, but another duty, too, as native and peculiar to the soil as the very cotton and the rice: this l

of mirth, and he addressed me from his grav

idn't at once cat

cousins have bee

e Earl of Mainridge! Well

!" he broke in wi

gs everywhere--where they're so lucky as

. "Yes. We do at least possess that. And some wine

ter for age,

smile that one sometimes has when giving voice to a sorrowful conviction against which one has tried to struggle. "Poor Kings Port," he affectionately repeated. Hi

treets. All that we have left is the immortality which these historic names have won." How could I tell him that I thought so, too? Nor was I as sure of it then as he was. And besides, this was a young man whose spirit was almost surely, in suffering; ill

aven't been here long

among the tombs. They gave him a fanciful thought. "Look at them! They belong to us, and they know it. They're saying, 'Yes; yes; y