THE GREY COB.

Morning has come, and the Queen of Chickaree must return to hold her court.  Little guesses the Queen what a court is gathering for her.  While she is quietly eating her breakfast at Dr. Maryland’s, Mme. Lasalle is ordering her horses, to make a call upon her in the course of the morning, and Mr. Kingsland is thinking in what cravat he shall adorn himself when he goes to do the same thing in the afternoon.  For Mr. Kingsland has arrived at home, where he and his old father keep a bachelor sort of household in a decayed old house at one extremity of Crocus.  They have a respectable name, folks say, but not wealth to set it off; and the household is small.  The same little boy who rubs down Mr. Kingsland’s horse waits upon table, and there is nobody else but a housekeeper.  But Mr. Morton is thinking he will call too; and Mr. Morton is a man of means; he owns a large part of Mill Hollow, called also Morton Hollow.  He occupies a great old brick house in the neighbourhood of the Hollow, and keeps it in excellent repair, and the grass of the lawn is well shaven.  Mr. Morton is well off and has servants enough, but he has years enough too; Mr. Morton must be forty.  Nevertheless he thinks he will call.

Then there is Mrs. ex-Governor Powder also; she lives in a very good house, and in an irreproachable manner, at a fine place called Valley Garden, ten miles off.  Mrs. Powder is an excellent woman, a stately lady, knows what is what, and has been a beauty, and held a court of her own.  Indeed she is of a proud old family, and married a little beneath her when she married the man who afterwards became Governor Powder.  But what would you have?  Women must be married.  Mrs. Powder will come to see Miss Kennedy; she is thinking about it; but probably she will not come till to-morrow or the day after; she is not in a hurry.  Mme. Lasalle is; and so is the gentleman of the roses, her nephew.  Meanwhile Miss Kennedy knows nothing of all this, nor how furthermore the Lawyer’s wife and the Doctor’s mother (for there is another doctor at Crocus) are meditating how soon they may ask Miss Kennedy to dinner or to supper, and how soon it will do to go and ask her.  They are afraid of seeming in a hurry.  Meanwhile Miss Kennedy eats her breakfast.

Breakfast is had in the stone hall, with the doors open front and rear and the Summer day looking in at them.  It is very pleasant, and the old black woman, Portia, comes and goes without interfering with the talk at table.  The sewing machine stands at one side of the hall still.

‘What new affair have you got there, my daughter?’ says the doctor.

‘It’s a sewing machine, papa, which Duke has brought me.’

‘A sewing machine!  What are you going to do with it?’

’Put her work in her pocket, I hope, sir.  I am tired of seeing it in her hand.’

‘It is very good of you, Duke; but can she manage it?’