“O, I forgot you did not know them.  Shall I begin with the young ladies?—­(Sam, there’s a stone in Jerry’s off fore-foot; get down and look about it—­Steady!—­there, I knew it)—­Excuse me, Miss d’Estree.  Well,—­the young ladies.  There’s one of our cousins, a grand, handsome, sombre, estimable girl, whom nobody ever flirts with, but whom somebody will marry.  That’s Henrietta Palmer.  Then there is Charlotte Benson—­not pretty, but stylish and so clever.  She carries too many guns for most men; she is a capital girl in her way.  Then there is Mary Leighton; she is small, blonde, lovely.  I do not believe in her particularly, but we are great friends, and flirt a little, I am told.  I quite wonder how you will like each other.  I hope you will tell me your impressions.  No doubt she will be rather your companion, for Henrietta and Charlotte Benson are desperately intimate, and have a room together.  They are quite romantic and very superior.  Pretty Miss Leighton isn’t in their line exactly, and is rather left to her own reflections, I should think.  But she makes up for it when the gentlemen appear; she isn’t left with any time upon her hands, you may be sure.  I don’t know what it is about her; she never said a bright thing in her life, and a great, great many silly ones; but everybody wants to talk to her, and her silly words are precious to the man to whom she says them.  Did you ever meet anybody like her?”

“I? oh no.  I never met anybody,” I said, half-bitterly, beginning to be afraid of the people whom I so soon should meet; and then I began to talk about the road, and to inquire how far we had yet to drive, and to ask to have a shawl about my shoulders.  It was not yet seven o’clock, but the country air was fresh and cool, and the rapid driving made it cooler.

“We are almost there; and I hope, Miss d’Estree, that you won’t feel as if you were going among strangers.  You will not feel so long, at any rate.  It is too bad Richard isn’t here; you know him so much better than the rest of us.  But before he comes back, I am sure you will feel as much at home as he.  But here’s the gate.”

There was a drive of perhaps an eighth of a mile from the gate to the house:  the trees and hedge were thick, so that one saw little of the house from the road.  The grounds were well kept; there was a nice lawn, in front of the house, and some very fine old trees.  The house was low and irregular, but quite picturesque.  It fronted the road; the rear looked toward the river, about quarter of a mile distant, and of which the view was lovely.

There was a piazza in front, on which four ladies stood; one of them came forward, and came down the steps, and met me as I got out of the carriage.  That, of course, was Mrs. Hollenbeck, She welcomed me very cordially, and led me up the steps of the piazza, where the young ladies stood.  Terrible young ladies!  I shook with fear of them.  I felt as if I did not know anything, as if I did