“MY DEAR BOY,--Olivia and I are coming to Washington to spend the winter. I have not been to the cursed town since the winter before the war, when Wigfall was in the Senate, and Floyd was Secretary of War. John B. Floyd was one of the greatest men the State of Virginia ever produced. Now, I want to go to a decent tavern--but Olivia, who is a girl of spirit, won’t do it. She insists on having a furnished house, and I’ve engaged one through an agent. Don’t suppose it will suit, but Olivia swears it will. We’ll be up in the course of a week or two, and will let you know. Damme if I expect to find a gentleman in public life--always excepting yourself, my dear boy. I inclose you our address. Olivia desires her regards to you and her particular love to Miles, also mine. “Sincerely, your friend, “TH. BERKELEY.” “That’s pleasant news,” said Miles. “Very pleasant,” replied Pembroke, without smiling in the least. He was glad to see the Colonel, but he was still sore about Olivia. Whenever he had been at home, the same friendly intercourse had gone on as before--but there was always an invisible restraint between them. Colonel Berkeley had noticed it, and at last ventured to question Olivia about it--when that young woman had turned on her father and cowed him by a look of her eye. There were some liberties the Colonel could not take with his daughter. Promptly, the Colonel and Olivia arrived. The house, which was after the conventional pattern of the Washington furnished house of those days, struck a chill to Colonel Berkeley’s heart. “My love,” he said, disconsolately, looking at the dull grates in the two square drawing-rooms, “I’m afraid I’ll lose all my domestic virtues around this miserable travesty of a hearth.” “Just wait, papa,” answered Olivia, with one of her encouraging smiles. “I knew how it would be. Wait until some of those big boxes are unpacked that you swore so about.” When the boxes were unpacked, they were found to contain the old fashioned brass andirons and fenders that had shone upon the cheerful hearths at Isleham for many years. Olivia in a trice, had the grates out and managed to have a wood fire sparkling where once they were. Then she produced a great porcelain lamp they had brought from France with them, and some tall silver candlesticks and candelabra, which vastly improved the mantels, and she re-arranged the tasteless furniture and bric-à-brac with such skill that she cheated herself as well as others into believing them pretty.