That same evening, Virginia proposed to me to fulfil a promise we had made some time before of visiting her cousins Nannie and Bettie Buckley. I was very willing to do so, having conceived a great admiration for these ladies, which I am afraid had no better foundation than that they were very tall, and dressed more showily and expensively than any one that I had ever seen. Every summer they went to the North, where they enjoyed the reputation of being great heiresses, and consequently received much attention. Their father's wealth, though by no means so large as was supposed, was still ample enough to allow them to keep up their character as heiresses by a free expenditure at the principal shops in New York and Philadelphia, and they returned home with more magnificent brocades, flashy-looking cashmeres and bareges, and fantastic ball-dresses than would have sufficed for ten years at Louden. I do not think that my friends there appreciated them any the more highly on account of these brilliant robes, but I was still in that state of inexperience when "fine feathers make fine birds," and I was very much inclined to respond cordially to their warmly proffered offers of intimacy, and wondered that Virginia showed so little desire to seek the society of such relations. I was so pleased to find that she was at last willing to accompany me there, that I at once consented to go the next afternoon, spend Saturday and Sunday with the Misses Buckley, and return early on Monday morning. We were to go on horseback, and when the time arrived, I found that Virginia's brother and younger sister were to accompany us. We galloped on in that glow of spirits and enjoyment that riding on horseback so often imparts; when, as we passed Mr. Marshall's plantation, the Lieutenant, as though he had been expecting and waiting for us, opened the gate and joined us. "That man is becoming a perfect _bête noir_ to me," said I to Ellen Percy; "I can never go anywhere without him, lately."