"There is a veritable ruin near here, I am told," she said, "a picturesque old heap, the remains of a grand mansion, on a bluff by the river. I should very much like to go and see it before I return to Montgomery. Do you know any thing about it?" "No, I regret that I have not the pleasure. I believe I have never heard of it," he answered. "General DeKay should be able to inform you." And so he conducted her to the host and hastened to another part of the room, conscious of having been guilty of a petty turn. Moreton had joined the group of which Miss Noble was the light, whilst Reynolds and Mrs. Ransom had found their way to Miss Beresford, whose ultra Southern face and figure were supplemented by conversational graces strikingly suggestive of a social era almost forgotten, save among the most conservative people of the low country. She was tall and dark, with regular features, large, rather expressionless black eyes and straight black hair. Mrs. Ransom introduced Reynolds, and then dinner was announced. "This is a gentlemen's party," Miss Beresford said, on the way to the dining-room, "and it has been arranged that the ladies shall act as waiters, and we beg you not to criticise our methods too severely--we are not perfectly trained to the work." "One who has been for several years living in the family of a mountaineer, as I have, should not be in a criticising mood," responded Reynolds; "how shall such an one presume to judge whether or no you balance a tray artistically?" He spoke lightly, but the word mountaineer, as he uttered it, called up with electrical swiftness, a thought that sent a strange thrill through him. A low, pathetically plaintive voice seemed to speak to him in the mountain dialect. He saw a little coarsely-clad form leaning on the gate at White's, with the pale starlight glimmering on its upturned face. As Miss Beresford had said it was to be, the dinner was served by the ladies, who passed behind the chairs of the gentlemen, flitting nimbly back and forth, receiving the viands from the hands of negro servants at the door of an ante-room, and presenting them to the guests. It was a study worthy of an artist's handling, that ample dining-room, with its curiously carved panels of oak, its antique mahogany side-board, its ponderous brass chandeliers and its high-backed chairs. Even Miss Crabb, as she actively busied herself with the part of the duties that fell to her share, showed to picturesquely good effect amidst such foils to her vivacious face and restless energy.