As Margaret took her way homeward from the old negro’s cabin, she was conscious of a more than usual softness in her heart for Uncle Mose and his reminiscences, and all the customs and traditions of which he was the exponent. Even Charley Somers seemed less reprehensible than he had been an hour ago, for the old man’s talk had brought before her mind a system of things of which the inertia and irresponsibleness that jarred upon her so, in the people around her, seemed the logical outgrowth. She had often been told that her father, when a small boy, had been every day drawn to and from his school in a diminutive coach pulled by ten little negroes; and a number of similar anecdotes which she could recall gave her an insight into the absolute difference between that _régime_ and the present, that made her somewhat ashamed of her intolerance, and mollified considerably her feeling toward young Somers, whom she determined to serve more kindly at their next interview. She was prompted further to this resolve by the fact that she had something to break to the young man, which she feared would go rather hard with him. An opportunity which she had often longed for, to see the great world beyond her own section of country, and observe the manners and habits of men and women whose circumstances and traditions were directly opposed to her own, had been offered recently by a letter, received from a cousin who had married an army officer and was living in Washington, which conveyed an invitation for her to make her a visit. Her father and mother highly approved the plan and it seemed settled that she was to go, and while she longed for the new experience, she found her thoughts dwelling rather tenderly on the dear old home and friends, of whom, it seemed to her now, she had been ungratefully impatient. CHAPTER II. A few weeks later, Miss Trevennon found herself domesticated in her cousin’s house in Washington, with surroundings so unfamiliar and circumstances so new to her that she found something to excite her interest and surprise almost every hour in the day. The perfect appointments of the house, which was gotten up with all the appliances of modern art, delighted and diverted her at every turn. “The mud-scraper,” she wrote her mother, in her first letter home, “is a thing of beauty, and the coal-scuttle a joy forever.” There were no children in the family, which consisted only of General and Mrs. Gaston and a bachelor brother of the former, who made his home with them, although a large portion of his time was spent in New York. Margaret had already been an inmate of the house for ten days, and as yet had not seen him. Mrs. Gaston, however, informed her that he might appear at any moment, his trips to and from New York being too frequent to entail the formality of announcing himself.