“Look, Princess!  Here’s a New Year’s gift just come for you.  I don’t know the writing.  I wonder what it is!”

“A subtle aroma suggests—­fruit,” hazarded Grace, sniffing curiously.

“Perhaps flowers,” suggests Mrs. Mason, who that morning was a woman with one idea.

Pocahontas wrestled with the cords, unfolded the wrappers, and lifted the cover.  Then she uttered a long drawn “oh” of satisfaction.

“What is it?” demanded the others with lively impatience.

Pocahontas lifted a card and turned it in her hand, and a smile broke over her face as she answered:  “Flowers; from Jim Byrd.”

Then she removed the damp moss and cotton, and lifted spray after spray of beautiful snowy jasmin—­Cape Jasmin, pure and powerful, and starry wreaths of the more delicate Catalonian.  Only white flowers—­all jasmin, Jim’s favorite flower; and with them were tropical ferns and grasses.  As she held the exquisite blossoms in her hands and inhaled their rich perfume, the girl was conscious that when her old friend penned the order for the fragrant gift, his heart had been full of home, and of the evening beside the river when she had worn his flowers in hair and dress, and had bidden him farewell.

“How beautiful they are!” exclaimed Grace, excitedly, “and just in time for to-night.  To think of the way I’ve made that wretched husband of mine charge through the country since day-break, this morning, in pursuit of white flowers, and here they come like a fairy story.  It was very nice of Jim.  I’d no idea there was so poetical an impulse in the old fellow; as the selection of these flowers appears to indicate.”

“You don’t appreciate Jim, Grace.  You do him injustice.  If thought and care and love for others, combined with tenderness, and delight in giving pleasure, constitutes poetical impulses, then Jim Byrd is the noblest poet we are likely ever to meet.”  Pocahontas spoke warmly, the color flushing to her cheeks, the light coming to her eyes.  Poor Jim!—­so far away.  Was it disloyal to her old friend to go that night to dance among strangers in the rooms that had been his,—­that were full of associations connected with him?  At all events, no flowers would she wear save his; no other ornaments of any kind.  It would seem, then, as though he participated in her pleasure; rejoiced in her joy.  Jim loved always to see her happy.  For reasons of their own, the two elder ladies had decided on remaining at home, so that Pocahontas repaired to the ball in male custody alone.  Blanche, who was on the watch for the Lanarth party, came forward the instant of their arrival, accompanied by her father, to welcome them, and to bear Pocahontas away to the upper regions to warm herself and remove her wrappings.  The rooms were a little chill, she explained, with a shiver, in spite of the splendid fires the general had kept roaring in them all day.  Pocahontas must remain where she was and warm herself thoroughly, and she would send one of the boys for her presently.  And after a little girlish gossip and mutual admiration of each others’ appearance, the small maiden tripped away to her duties below.