"Finish my game for me, will you?" said I to Virginia; "I will return in a moment." But my moment lengthened into nearly half an hour, for four gentlemen of the party who were noted for their musical skill had been persuaded to send for their instruments and sing and play for us. This they did so well that it was with reluctance that at last I fulfilled my promise of returning.
Virginia was playing with the backgammon men as I entered, and Lieutenant Marshall was talking to her in a low tone.
"There he is, just as tiresome as ever," thought I; but we do not live in the palace of Youth now, so that I said, as I approached them--
Virginia looked as though she had never heard of a game of backgammon, and it was a minute or two before I was answered. At last Mr. Marshall said--
"I was--that is, I mean Miss Virginia was"--and he did not seem exactly to know what he did mean.
"Do come out on the porch," said I, benevolently intending to relieve Virginia from a great bore; "we are having some delightful singing, and it is a very pleasant night." And I succeeded in inducing them both to accompany me.
That same evening, Virginia proposed to me to fulfil a promise we had made some time before of visiting her cousins Nannie and Bettie Buckley. I was very willing to do so, having conceived a great admiration for these ladies, which I am afraid had no better foundation than that they were very tall, and dressed more showily and expensively than any one that I had ever seen. Every summer they went to the North, where they enjoyed the reputation of being great heiresses, and consequently received much attention. Their father's wealth, though by no means so large as was supposed, was still ample enough to allow them to keep up their character as heiresses by a free expenditure at the principal shops in New York and Philadelphia, and they returned home with more magnificent brocades, flashy-looking cashmeres and bareges, and fantastic ball-dresses than would have sufficed for ten years at Louden. I do not think that my friends there appreciated them any the more highly on account of these brilliant robes, but I was still in that state of inexperience when "fine feathers make fine birds," and I was very much inclined to respond cordially to their warmly proffered offers of intimacy, and wondered that Virginia showed so little desire to seek the society of such relations. I was so pleased to find that she was at last willing to accompany me there, that I at once consented to go the next afternoon, spend Saturday and Sunday with the Misses Buckley, and return early on Monday morning.