"
"Dear, _dear_--and our Bishop did enjoy his mint julep so!"
"That's different," I said; "they were probably raised together."
"And that afternoon, I thought something of the sort was necessary; do
you know, they seemed rather cold to me at that other meeting--and of
course there wasn't enough of it to hurt them."
"Your intentions were amiable, I concede, but your carelessness was
criminal--nothing short of it. You laid the train for a scandal that
would have shaken Slocum County to its remotest outlying cornfield, and
even made itself felt over this whole sovereign state."
I was gratified to see that she shuddered.
"I shall never learn," she pleaded; "their life is so different."
"Let them at least live it out to its natural end, such as it is," I
urged.
Hereupon, confessing herself unnerved, Miss Caroline led me to the
dining room, and in a glass of Madeira from a cask forwarded by
Second-cousin Colonel Lucius Quintus Peavey, C.S.A., she pledged herself
to preserve the decencies as these had been codified in Little Arcady by
the Sons and Daughters of Temperance. For my part I drank to her
continuance in the wondrous favor of Heaven.
Thereafter, I am bound to say, Miss Caroline conducted herself with a
discretion that was admirable.
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