The warm summer moon wheeled up that evening through the dusk, odorous with the wild luxuriance of wood and swamp growths. A carriage rolled along the highway between stretches of rice lands and avenues of pines. In the west red and yellow showed where the path of the sun had been and against it was outlined the gables of an imposing structure, dark against the sky. "We are again close to the Salkahatchie," said Mrs. McVeigh, pointing where the trees marked its course, "and across there--see that roof, Marquise?--that is Loringwood. If the folks had got across from Charleston we would stop there long enough to rest and have a bit of supper. But the road winds so that the distance is longer than it looks, and we are too near home to stop on such an uncertainty. Gertrude's note from Charleston telling of their safe arrival could say nothing definite of their home coming." "That, no doubt, depends on the invalid relative," suggested her guest; "the place looks very beautiful in this dim light; the cedars along the road there are magnificent." "I have heard they are nearly two hundred years old. Years ago it was the great show place of the country, but two generations of very extravagant sportsmen did much to diminish its wealth--generous, reckless and charming men--but they planted mortgages side by side with their rice fields. Those encumbrances have, I fancy, prevented Gertrude from being as fond of the place as most girls would be of so fine an ancestral home." "Possibly she lacks the gamester blood of her forefathers and can have no patience with their lack of the commercial instinct." "I really do believe that is just it," said Mrs. McVeigh. "I never had thought of it in that way myself, but Gertrude certainly is not at all like the Lorings; she is entirely of her mother's people, and they are credited with possessing a great deal of the commercial instinct. I can't fancy a Masterson gambling away a penny. They are much more sensible; they invest." The cedar avenues had been left a mile behind, and they had entered again the pine woods where even the moon's full radiance could only scatter slender lances of light. The Marquise leaned back with half-shut slumberous eyes, and confessed she was pleased that it would be later, instead of this evening, that she would have the pleasure of meeting the master and mistress of Loringwood--the drive through the great stretches of pine had acted as a soporific; no society for the night so welcome as King Morpheus. The third woman in the carriage silently adjusted a cushion back of Madame's head. "Thank you, Louise," she said, yawning a little. "You see how effectually I have been mastered by the much remarked languor of the South. It is delightfully restful. I cannot imagine any one ever being in a hurry in this land."