"'Pears laik everybody been daid and buried but Mas'r Louis," said old Chloe.
At the Pineries nothing seemed changed. Brandon Floyd was beginning to look like his father, and was taking on the same important airs. He was very bitter about "Madison's war, that no doubt would last as long as the other war, by the looks of things, and leave us in the same plight."
When Mr. Mason thought of his own blooming girls his heart really ached for Marian. After all, there was nothing like a home of her own and a love of her own for a woman. He was glad Jaqueline had come back to hers.
But it brought about a rather perplexing point, not so easily settled, it would seem. Mr. Carrington importuned for an early marriage. Jaqueline had bidden him wait until her father came.
The lover pleaded his cause so well that the father could hardly say him nay.
"What do you most desire?" to Jaqueline. "We may not be back until quite in the autumn. I have been seized with a strong inclination to see a little of our own big land," laughingly. "We are proud of our share in the old war, but other States had a hand in it as well. It makes a man feel more a citizen of the whole country--and a grand place it is. So we shall not hurry."
He gave her a wistful glance, as if to read her wish in the matter.
"I would quite as lief wait. Everything would have to be so different. But," blushing, "it was the rock on which we went to pieces before."
"There would be great disappointment on the old place. But you might go down and stay a week or so. Varina is so in love with Dolly and Charleston that we settled she should remain until autumn, when Dolly and her husband are coming up for a visit. That young Floyd seems to be quite somebody. I always thought Dolly flighty, but she appears to have some common sense, after all."
"And Varina is quite a woman. I hope she won't be utterly spoiled. Of course," tentatively, "it would be a quiet wedding. I think I would like it in church."
"Why not?" said Patty. "So many of the girls around home are married and gone, and unless you could have a crowd it would be dismal. Then, you have so many friends in Washington. To be sure, it would be queer for a girl to be married without all her family about her. Mamma and Charles and Varina! Well, we've one more than half of them. Jaqueline, if you hadn't made that fuss before----"