Winston Aylett, owner and tenant of the ancient mansion of Ridgeley--the great house of a neighborhood where small houses and men of narrow means were infrequent--had gone North about the first of June, upon a tour of indefinite length, but which was certainly to include Newport, the lakes, and Niagara, and was still absent. His aunt, Mrs. Sutton, and his only sister, Mabel, did the honors of his home in his stead, and, if the truth must be admitted, more acceptably to their guests than he had ever succeeded in doing. For a week past, the house had been tolerably well filled--ditto Mrs. Sutton's hands; ditto her great, heart. Had she not three love affairs, in different but encouraging stages of progression, under her roof and her patronage! And were not all three, to her apprehension, matches worthy of Heaven's making, and her co-operation? A devout Episcopalian, she was yet an unquestioning believer in predestination and “special Providences”--and what but Providence had brought together the dear creatures now basking in the benignant beam of her smile, sailing smoothly toward the haven of Wedlock before the prospering breezes of Circumstance (of her manufacture)? While putting sugar and cream into the cups intended for the happy pairs, she reviewed the situation rapidly in her mind, and sketched the day's manoeuvres. First, there was the case of Tom Barksdale and Imogene Tabb--highly satisfactory and creditable to all the parties concerned in it, but not romantic. Tom, a sturdy young planter, who had studied law while at the University, but never practised it, being already provided for by his opulent father, had visited his relatives, the Tabbs, in August, and straightway fallen in love with the one single daughter of his second cousin--a pretty, amiable girl, who would inherit a neat fortune at her parent's death, and whose pedigree became identical with that of the Barksdales a couple of generations back, and was therefore unimpeachable. The friends on both sides were enchanted; the lovers fully persuaded that they were made for one another, an opinion cordially endorsed by Mrs. Sutton, and they could confer with no higher authority.