There were several religious sects represented in the county. These were generally at war with one another, but they all made common cause in this emergency, and committees of old ladies from the “Christians,” the “hard-shell Baptists,” the “predestination Presbyterians,” would come to condole with “Miss Margaret,” and would kneel down in the parlor with Sylvia and pray for her salvation, shedding tears over the cream velour upholstery of the hand-carved mahogany sofas. A distant cousin who was “in orders,” a young gentleman of charming presence and special training in dialectics, was called in to answer the arguments of this wayward young lady, and stayed for three days, probing deeply into his patient’s mind—not merely her theological beliefs, but the attitude to life which underlay them. When he had finished he said to her, “My dear Sylvia, it is my opinion that you are the most dangerous person in this county.” She told me the story, and added, “I hadn’t the remotest idea what the man meant!” But I answered her that he had been perfectly right. In truth, he was a seer, that young clergyman! § 5 There was a general feeling that Sylvia had learned more than was good for her; and so the family made inquiries, and selected the most exclusive and expensive “finishing school” in New York, for the purpose of putting a stop to her intellectual development. And so we come to the beginning of Sylvia’s wordly career, and to the visit she paid to Lady Dee—who now, at the age of ninety, felt herself failing rapidly, and wished to leave to her great-niece her treasures of worldly counsel. Lady Dee was one of those quaint figures you meet in the South, who go to balls and parties when they are old enough to be sewing the _layettes_ of their great-grandchildren. I have seen a picture of her at the age of eighty-five, in a cerise-colored silk ball-gown with a lace “bertha,” her white hair curled in front and done in a pile with a coronet of diamonds. You must imagine her now, in an invalid’s chair upon the gallery, but still with her hair dressed as of old; telling to Sylvia tales of her own young ladyhood—and incidentally, with such deftness that the girl never guessed her purpose, introducing instruction in the strategy and tactics of the sex war. Life was short, according to Lady Dee, and the future was uncertain. A woman bloomed but once, and must make the most of that. To be the center of events during her hour, that was life’s purpose; and to achieve it, it was necessary to know how to hold men. Men were sometimes said to be strange and difficult creatures, but in reality they were simple and easily handled. The trouble was that most women went blindly at the task, instead of availing themselves of the wisdom which their sex had been storing up for ages, in the minds of such authorities as Lady Dee.