“And I think,” said the artist, who had been watching, from the little distance at which they sat, the table of the revelers, “that they will succeed.  Twenty-six bottles of champagne, and not many more guests!  What a happy people, to be able to enjoy champagne before twelve o’clock!”

“Oh, you never will understand us!” said Mrs. Farquhar; “there is nothing spontaneous in you.”

“We do not begin to be spontaneous till after dinner,” said King.

“And then it is all calculated.  Think of Mr. Forbes counting the bottles!  Such a dreadfully mercenary spirit!  Oh, I have been North.  Because you are not so open as we are, you set up for being more virtuous.”

“And you mean,” said King, “that frankness and impulse cover a multitude of—­”

“I don’t mean anything of the sort.  I just mean that conventionality isn’t virtue.  You yourself confessed that you like the Southern openness right much, and you like to come here, and you like the Southern people as they are at home.”

“Well?”

“And now will you tell me, Mr. Prim, why it is that almost all Northern people who come South to live become more Southern than the Southerners themselves; and that almost all Southern people who go North to live remain just as Southern as ever?”

“No.  Nor do I understand any more than Dr. Johnson did why the Scotch, who couldn’t scratch a living at home, and came up to London, always kept on bragging about their native land and abused the metropolis.”

This sort of sparring went on daily, with the result of increasing friendship between the representatives of the two geographical sections, and commonly ended with the declaration on Mrs. Farquhar’s part that she should never know that King was not born in the South except for his accent; and on his part that if Mrs. Farquhar would conceal her delightful Virginia inflection she would pass everywhere at the North for a Northern woman.

“I hear,” she said, later, as they sat alone, “that Mr. Meigs has beat a retreat, saving nothing but his personal baggage.  I think Miss Benson is a great goose.  Such a chance for an establishment and a position!  You didn’t half appreciate him.”

“I’m afraid I did not.”

“Well, it is none of my business; but I hope you understand the responsibility of the situation.  If you do not, I want to warn you about one thing:  don’t go strolling off before sunset in the Lovers’ Walk.  It is the most dangerous place.  It is a fatal place.  I suppose every turn in it, every tree that has a knoll at the foot where two persons can sit, has witnessed a tragedy, or, what is worse, a comedy.  There are legends enough about it to fill a book.  Maybe there is not a Southern woman living who has not been engaged there once at least.  I’ll tell you a little story for a warning.  Some years ago there was a famous belle here who had the Springs at her feet, and half a dozen determined