The young girl did not reply.  Visions of her own lonely home rose before her—­her mother fading slowly away under an accumulation of misfortunes; her only brother shot in the Union army; her father sinking into almost a dishonored grave through hopeless liabilities brought on indirectly by the war; she, petted and idolized, the only remaining member of the family, seeking her daily bread and finding a pittance by working among strangers.  She hung her head and had not a word with which to reply.

“I dare say you’ve had troubles of your own,” exclaimed Mrs. Pinckney.  “Of course you have, or you wouldn’t be here, you dear creature!  It is well for me that you are here, though,” kissing her affectionately.  “Now, everything must be just right when this haughty, fastidious brother-in-law of mine comes.  He isn’t apt to find fault, but I am conscious that he is secretly criticising my dress, my dinners, the gaucheries of the servants, my moral qualities, even the way I turn my sentences.  I shouldn’t mind trying to talk my very best English if he were not prying into my motives:  it is difficult to be on one’s guard in every direction,” with a sigh.

“I should think he’d be very disagreeable,” said Miss Featherstone.

“No:”  the no was hesitating.  “He is dangerously attractive:  at least he attracts me.  I’m all the time wondering what he is thinking, which keeps me perpetually thinking of him.  He is a Southerner, you know, and was in the army; so you must be very careful,’my dear mees,’ as Mr. Brown says, not to come out with your ‘truly loyal’ sentiments:  he won’t like them.”

“I don’t care whether he likes them or not.”  Miss Featherstone’s face was crimson:  it was the first spark of temper she had shown since she came into the house.

Mrs. Pinckney looked at her in surprise, then laughed:  “I’m delighted to see something human about you:  I thought you were a saint.”

“By no manner of means,” returned the governess curtly.

“I shall warn Dick not to get upon the subject of the war,” was the note that Mrs. Pinckney, inconsequent as she generally was, made of the scene.—­“But I’m forgetting why I sent for you,” she said aloud.  “I want you to go to town and buy Christmas presents and quantities of things to eat and drink.  I was going myself, but I never can count upon a day as to being well with any certainty,” with rather an ostentatious sigh.  “I’ve made out a list:  there’s plenty of money, isn’t there?”

Miss Featherstone had the care of the money and accounts:  “Yes,” hesitatingly; “that is—­”

“No matter,” interrupted Mrs. Pinckney.  “I have accounts at hosts of places.  The carriage is ordered to take you to the station:  will you be ready, dear, at ten o’clock?”

Miss Featherstone looked at her watch and hurried to her room.

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!”