a week or two, and will let you know. Damme if I expect to find a gentleman in public life—always excepting yourself, my dear boy. I inclose you our address. Olivia desires her regards to you and her particular love to Miles, also mine.
"Sincerely, your friend,
"Th. Berkeley."
"That's pleasant news," said Miles.
"Very pleasant," replied Pembroke, without smiling in the least. He was glad to see the Colonel, but he was still sore about Olivia. Whenever he had been at home, the same friendly intercourse had gone on as before—but there was always an invisible restraint between them. Colonel Berkeley had noticed it, and at last ventured to question Olivia about it—when that young woman had turned on her father and cowed him by a look of her eye. There were some liberties the Colonel could not take with his daughter.
Promptly, the Colonel and Olivia arrived.
The house, which was after the conventional pattern of the Washington furnished house of those days, struck a chill to Colonel Berkeley's heart.
"My love," he said, disconsolately, looking at the dull grates in the two square drawing-rooms, "I'm afraid I'll lose all my domestic virtues around this miserable travesty of a hearth."
"Just wait, papa," answered Olivia, with one of her encouraging smiles.
