red to visit her as often as she
chose, her wish being the supreme law at Rock Towers, she had never even
thought of inviting one of the class against whom her uncle's ruddy face
was so steadfastly set. The first time it ever occurred to her to invite
any one among the proscribed was when she asked Rose Endicott to pay
her a visit. Rose, she knew, was living with her old aunt, Miss Jemima
Bridges, whom she had once met in R-----, and she had some apprehension
that in Miss Jemima's opinion, the condition of the South was so much
like that of the Sandwich Islands that the old lady would not permit
Rose to come without her personal escort. Accordingly, one evening after
tea, when the Major was in a particularly gracious humor, and had told
her several of his oldest and best stories, Margaret fell upon him
unawares, and before he had recovered from the shock of the encounter,
had captured his consent. Then, in order to s-
ecure the leverage of a
dispatched invitation, she had immediately written Rose, asking her
and her aunt to come and spend a month or two with her, and had without
delay handed it to George Washington to deliver to Lazarus to give
Luke to carry to the post-office. The next evening, therefore, when the
Major, after twenty-four hours of serious apprehension, reopened the
matter with a fixed determination to coax or buy her out of the notion,
because, as he used to say, "women can't be _reasoned_ out of a thing,
sir, not having been reasoned in," Margaret was able to meet him with
the announcement that it was "too late," as the letter had already been
mailed.
Seated in one of the high-backed arm-chairs, with one white hand shading
her laughing eyes from the light, and with her evening dress daintily
spread out about her, Margaret was amused at the look of desperation
on the old gentleman's ruddy face. He squared his ro-