Mrs. Gwynn still lingered in the dining room, and the little "ladies" explained that her old nurse, who was now the cook, was afflicted with a "misery," seeming to bear some relation to neuralgia, and needed help to get through with her work, "Uncle Ephraim being a poor dependence" where the handling of crockery was concerned. The "ladies," with true feminine coquetry, affected a shy reserve, and rather retreated from the expansive jovial bonhomie of Colonel Ashley's hearty advances toward them, albeit they were wont to press their attentions upon the inexpressive Captain Baynell. They met with fluttering downcast glances the engaging twinkle of Ashley's bright dark eyes. They replied with demure little clipped monosyllables to his gay sallies, and indeed Colonel Ashley bade fair to discharge the task of entertaining himself throughout the evening, till he luckily asked one of them what she liked best to play--graces or battledore and shuttlecock, Geraldine having brought in a grace-hoop and now holding it in her hands before her as she stood in the flicker of the fire. "I like cards best," Adelaide volunteered unexpectedly. "Have you a pack of cards? Then let's have a game!" Ashley cried gayly; "though I'm afraid you can beat me at anything I try." There was a shrill jubilance of juvenile acclaim. The three, their ringlets waving, their cheeks flushing, the short skirts of their gay attire--blue, and crimson, and orange--fluttering joyfully, were instantly placing the chairs about the little card-table and climbing into them, while Colonel Ashley took the cards and dealt them with many airy fancy touches, to the amazement and admiration of the "ladies." With his versatile capacity for all sorts of enjoyment, the incident was beginning to have a certain zest for him, involving no sacrifice either of inclination or time. Baynell realized how Ashley also valued the pose. He had an intuitive perception of Ashley's own relish of its incongruity,--the gallant colonel of cavalry, who had successfully measured blades with the fiercest swordsmen and masters of fence, to be now lending himself gently to play with three little children, whose soft eyes glowed upon him with radiant admiration and tenderest confidence, while the firelight flared and flickered within and the storm raged without! Baynell knew that it was with an appreciated sacrifice of the perfect proportions of the situation that Ashley finally dealt cards for his friend and Judge Roscoe; he would have preferred to exclude them, if he might, and have the whole stage for the effects of his own dramatic personality. But never, in all his weavings of romance about himself, was Ashley guilty of even the slightest injustice or discourtesy or forgetfulness of the claims of others; hence his character was almost as fine and lovable as he feigned, or as it would have seemed, had but his foible of self-appreciation, self-gratulation, borne a juster proportion and been rendered less