It was snowing when she returned from New York: great flakes fell on her as she stepped, loaded with bundles, out of the carriage. The children met her with joyful whoops at the front door: "Oh, here's clear little Miss Featherstone, and we know she's got our Christmas presents.--You can't deny it. Hurrah!"
They dragged her into the dining-room, where the table, decked with flowers, was handsomely arranged for dinner. A blazing wood-fire roared on the hearth: in front of it stood a tall, handsome man with a military air. He was dark, with brilliant eyes, a certain regularity of features, and, as his passport declared, his hair was dark brown and curly. Colonel Pinckney looked haughty and impenetrable, as his sister-in-law had described him. Mrs. Pinckney, exquisitely dressed, reclined in a large chair by the corner of the fireplace: she held up a pretty fan to screen her face from the heat, and was talking gayly to her brother-in-law. At a table in a corner Mr. Brown, by the light of a large lamp, was endeavoring, with great difficulty, to read an English paper.
"Oh, mamma, see poor little Miss Featherstone loaded down with boxes and bundles!" shrieked the children, dragging her up to the fire.
"Dear children, do go and get Adèle to take them," said their mother.--"Here, Mary," to a servant who entered, "carry these packages up to my dressing-room.--There are more in the carriage?" in reply to a remark of Miss Featherstone.--"Adèle," to her maid, who stood at the door, "bring in everything you find in the carriage."
Two or three weeks passed, and Colonel Pinckney made no sign of departure. In spite of his unsocial tendencies, he drove and dined out with his sister-in-law, for many nice people chose this winter to remain at their country-houses. He took long walks by himself, and made inroads into the school-room, for he was very fond of the children. Mrs. Pinckney was less frequently indisposed, and exerted herself in a measure to entertain him. She never, by any accident, occupied herself, and was one morning lying back in a large chair by a coal-fire in the library, her little idle hands resting on her lap, when Colonel Pinckney, who had been examining the books on the shelves which lined the room, assumed his usual position, with his back to the fire, and startled his sister-in-law by exclaiming, "Where did you get your white slave, Virginia?"--Mrs. Pinckney looked bewildered--"this young girl who fills so many places in the house? She appears to be nurse, housekeeper, governess and maid-of-all-work in one."