The General immediately seized his opportunity. “’Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain!’ You are acquainted with the works of Goldsmith, sir?”

I professed some knowledge of this author also, and the General’s talk flowed ornately onward.  Though I had little to say to him about his daughter’s marriage, he had much to say to me.  Miss Josephine St. Michael would have been gratified to hear that her family was considered suitable for Hortense to contract an alliance with.  “My girl is not stepping down, sir,” the father assured me; and he commended the St. Michaels and the whole connection.  He next alluded tragically but vaguely to misfortunes which had totally deprived him of income.  I could not precisely fix what his inheritance had been; sometimes he spoke of cotton, but next it would be rice, and he touched upon sugar more than once; but, whatever it was, it had been vast and was gone.  He told me that I could not imagine the feelings of a father who possessed a jewel and no dowry to give her.  “A queen’s estate should have been hers,” he said.  “But what!  ’Who steals my purse steals trash.’” And he sat up, nobly braced by the philosophic thought.  But he soon was shaking his head over his enfeebled health.  Was I aware that he had been the cause of postponing the young people’s joy twice?  Twice had the doctors forbidden him to risk the emotions that would attend his giving his jewel away.  He dwelt upon his shattered system to me, and, indeed, it required some dwelling on, for he was the picture of admirable preservation.  “But I know what it is myself,” he declared, “to be a lover and have bliss delayed.  They shall be united now.  A soldier must face all arrows.  What!”

I had hoped he might quote something here, but was disappointed.  His conversation would soon cease to interest me, should I lose the excitement of watching for the next classic; and my eye wandered from the General to the water, where, happily, I saw John Mayrant coming in the launch.  I briskly called the General’s attention to him, and was delighted with the unexpected result.

“‘Oh, young Lochinvar has come out of the West,’” said the General, lifting his glass.

I touched it ceremoniously with mine.  “The day will be hot,” I said; “‘The boy stood on the burning deck.’”

On this I made my escape from him, and, leaving him to his whiskey and his contemplating, I became aware that the eyes of the rest of the party were eager to watch the greeting between Hortense and John.  But there was nothing to see.  Hortense waited until her lover had made his apologies to Charley for being late, and, from the way they met, she might have been no more to him than Kitty was.  Whatever might be thought, whatever might be known, by these onlookers, Hortense set the pace of how the open secret was to be taken.  She made it, for all of us, as smooth and smiling as the waters of Kings Port were this fine day.  How much did they each know?