Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/342

 "Really?"

"Beaux, morning, noon and night,—dancing, moonlight rides, boats gliding along the beautiful river and mocking birds singing softly their love-song under the window all night!"

"Well you did have romance," he declared.

"Yes," she went on "and such people, such hospitality—oh! I feel as though I never had lived before."

"My dear, you mustn't desert us all like that," he protested.

"I can't help it, I'm a rebel now."

"Then keep still till the campaign's over!" he warned in mock fear.

"And the boys down there," she continued, "they are such boys! Time doesn't seem to be an object with them at all. Evidently they have never heard of our uplifting Yankee motto  ' Time is money. '  And such knightly deference! such charming old fashioned chivalrous ways!"

"But, dear, isn't that a little out of date?"

"How staid and proper and busy Boston seems! I know I am going to be depressed by it."

"I know what's the matter with you!" he whistled.

"What?" she slyly asked.

"One of those boys."

"I confess. Papa, he's as handsome as a prince."

"What does he look like?"

"He is tall, dark, with black hair, black eyes, slender, graceful, all fire and energy."

"What's his name?"

"St. Clare—Robert St. Clare. His father was away from home. He's a politician, I think."

"You don't say! St. Clare. Well of all the jokes! His father is my Democratic chum in the House—an old fire-eating Bourbon, but a capital fellow."

"Did you ever see him?"