Until that day on which he had stepped within its portals, his experience of Northern hospitality had been confined to Jack’s and Sanford’s bachelor apartments, for years ideal realms of elegance and ease. These now seemed to him both primitive and meagre. Where Jack had but one room to spare for a friend, and Sanford but two, The Pines had whole suites opening into corridors terminating in vistas of entrancing lounging-places, with marvelous fittings and draperies. Where Sam and Jefferson, in their respective establishments, performed unaided every household duty, from making a cocktail to making a bed, The Pines boasted two extra men, who assisted Buckles at the sideboard, to say nothing of countless maids, gardeners, hostlers, stable-boys, and lesser dependents. Moreover, the major had come upon a most capacious carriage-house and out-buildings, sheltering a wonderful collection of drags, coupés, and phaetons of patterns never seen by him before,—particularly a most surprising dog-cart with canary-colored wheels; and a stable full of satin-skinned horses with incredible pedigrees, together with countless harnesses mounted in silver, and decorated with monograms. Last, but by no means least, he had discovered, to his infinite joy, a spick-and-span perfectly appointed steam yacht, with sailing-master, engineer, firemen, and crew constantly on board, and all ready, at a moment’s notice, to steam off to the uttermost parts of the earth in search of booty or adventure. The major had found, in fact, all that his wildest flights and his most mendacious imaginings had pictured. The spacious piazzas, velvet lawns, and noble parks of which he had so often boasted as being “upon the estate of a ve’y dear friend of mine up No’th, suh, where I spend so many happy days;” the wonderful cuisine, fragrant Havanas, crusty port and old Hennessy,—the property as well of this diaphanous gentleman,—had at last become actual realities. The women of charming mien and apparel, so long creations of his brain,—“Dianas, suh, clothed one hour in yachtin’-jackets, caps, and dainty yellow shoes, and the next in webs of gossamer, their lovely faces shaded by ravishin’ pa’asols and crowned by wonderful hats,”—now floated daily along the very gravel walks that his own feet pressed, or were attended nightly by gay gallants in immaculate black and white, whose elbows touched his own. Of all these luxuries had he dreamed for years, and about all these luxuries had he lied, descanting on their glories by the hour to that silent group of thirsty Pocomokians before the village bar, or to the untraveled neighbors who lightened with their presence the lonely hours at Crab Island. But never until Mrs. Leroy had opened wide to him the portals of The Pines had they been real to his sight and touch.