Still his old feeling of pique was uppermost when shown into her father’s magnificent parlor; and this, combined with his astonishment at seeing a graceful and high bred woman announced as his old playmate, lent an air of coldness and embarrassment to his greetings. Whether it was this or some other cause, Kate, who was advancing eagerly, suddenly checked herself, colored, and put on all her dignity. The interview, so inauspiciously begun, was short and formal, and to Preston, at least, unsatisfactory. He had expected, in spite of their tacit misunderstanding, that Kate would meet him as rapturously as of old, forgetting that the child had now become a woman. He overlooked, also, the effect his own restraint might have produced. Thus he returned to his lodgings, dissatisfied and angry, half disposed to dislike, yet half compelled to admire, the beautiful and dazzling creature from whom he had just parted. The truth was, Preston, though hitherto ignorant of it, had loved his old playmate from boyhood. This had made him feel her neglect so acutely, and this had led him secretly to hope that her welcome on his return would heal the past. No wonder he went home angry, yet quite as much in love as ever! Preston and Kate often met after this, but they seemed destined to misunderstand each other. Kate was really ignorant of the mischief she had done. She had come down to meet him with a heart full of the memories of other days, and, if truth must be told, a little nervous and anxious how he, of whom she had so often thought in secret, would receive her. His proud demeanor had chilled her. Nor on subsequent occasions were their interviews more satisfactory. Indeed Kate was puzzled and vexed at Preston’s manner. No one could, at times, be more interesting; yet no one was so often haughty and disagreeable. Kate sighed to think how changed he had become; then she was angry at herself for sighing. Kate was accordingly as wayward as Preston—and who, indeed, had greater excuse? Rich and well born, beautiful and high-spirited, she was positively the reigning belle in Charleston during the whole of that gay winter. To a complexion delicately fair, and a person of the most exquisite proportions, she united those graces of mind and manner, which, in that courtly day, were considered the unerring accompaniments of high breeding. Report awarded to her numbers of unsuccessful suitors; but all had tacitly resigned their claims in favor of Major Lindsay, an English officer of noble blood, between whom and an earldom there was only a single life. Gay and splendid in person and equipage, the Major no sooner laid siege to the heart of the heiress, than her less favored suitors gave over in despair; and what between lounging most of his mornings away in her parlor, and attending her abroad on all occasions, he speedily came to have the field nearly altogether to himself.