Everybody listened eagerly, but none more eagerly and surprisingly than
the host himself. M'Kenna! The rich cousin who had never answered the
invitation! And Uncle Dick! This, then, was his divorced niece! Yet even
in his astonishment he remembered that of course no one but himself and
Mrs. Price knew it,--and that lady had glanced discreetly away.
"Yes," continued the half-niece brightly. "I came from Sacramento with
some friends to Shootersville, and from thence I drove here; and though
I must return to-night, I could not forego the pleasure of coming, if
it was only for an hour or two, to answer the invitation of the uncle I
have not seen for years." She paused, and, raising her glasses, turned a
politely questioning eye towards Mrs. Price. "One of our relations?" she
said smilingly to Spindler.
"No," said Spindler, with some embarrassment, "a--a friend!"
The half-niece extended her hand. Mrs. Price took it.
But the fair stranger,--what she did and said were the only things
remembered in Rough and Ready on that festive occasion; no one thought
of the other relations; no one recalled them nor their eccentricities;
Spindler himself was forgotten. People only recollected how Spindler's
lovely niece lavished her smiles and courtesies on every one, and
brought to her feet particularly the misogynist Starbuck and the
sarcastic Cooledge, oblivious of his previous speech; how she sat at
the piano and sang like an angel, hushing the most hilarious and excited
into sentimental and even maudlin silence; how, graceful as a nymph, she
led with "Uncle Dick" a Virginia reel until the whole assembly joined,
eager for a passing touch of her dainty hand in its changes; how, when
two hours had passed,--all too swiftly for the guests,--they stood with
bared heads and glistening eyes on the veranda to see the fairy coach
whirl the fairy princess away! How--but this incident was never known to
Rough and Ready.
It happened in the sacred dressing-room, where Mrs. Price was cloaking
with her own hands the departing half-niece of Mr. Spindler. Taking that
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