Elsies Kith and Kin | Page 5

little hotels of this miserable
little village. So I was delighted to see your carriage standing there, and
you yourself beside it; for, knowing you to be one of the most
hospitable of men, I am sure you will be moved to pity, and take me
home with you."
Edward's heart sank at thought of Zoe, but, seeing no way out of the
dilemma, "Certainly," he said, and helped his self-invited guest to a
seat in his carriage, placed himself by her side, and bade the coachman
drive on to Ion.
"Now, really, this is very good in you, Mr. Travilla," remarked Miss
Deane: "there is no place I like better to visit than Ion, and I begin to
think it was rather a fortunate mishap--missing my train."

"Very unfortunate for me, I fear," sighed Edward to himself. "The loss
of her drive will be a great disappointment to Zoe, and the sight of such
a guest far from making it up to her. I am thankful the visit is to be for
only a night."
Aloud he said, "I fear you will find it less pleasant than on former
occasions,--in fact, rather lonely; as all the family are absent--spending
the winter at Viamede, my mother's Louisiana plantation--except my
wife and myself."
"Ah! but your wife is a charming little girl,--I never can think of her as
a woman, you know,--and you are a host in yourself," returned the lady
laughingly.
Zoe's callers had left; and she, having donned hat and cloak, not to keep
her husband a single moment, was at the window watching for his
coming, when the carriage came driving up the avenue, and drew up at
the door.
She hurried out, expecting to find no one there but himself, and to be at
once handed to a seat in the vehicle, and the next minute be speeding
away with him, enjoying her drive all the more for the little
disappointment that had preceded it.
What, then, was her chagrin to see a visitor handed out, and that visitor
the woman for whom she had conceived the most violent antipathy!
"Miss Deane, my dear," Edward said, with an entreating look at Zoe,
which she did not see, her eyes being at that instant fixed upon the face
of her uninvited and unwelcome guest.
"How do you do, my dear Mrs. Travilla? I hope you are glad to see
me?" laughed the intruder, holding out a delicately gloved hand, "your
husband has played the Good Samaritan to me to-night--saving me
from having to stay in one of those wretched little hotels in the village
till two o'clock to-morrow morning."
"I am in usual health, thank you. Will you walk in?" returned Zoe in a

freezing tone, and utterly ignoring the offered hand. "Will you step into
the parlor? or would you prefer being shown to your room first?"
"The latter, if you please," Miss Deane answered sweetly, apparently
quite unaware that Zoe's manner was in the least ungracious.
"Dinah," said Zoe, to a maid-in-waiting, "show Miss Deane to the room
she occupied on her last visit. Carry up her satchel, and see that she has
every thing she wants."
Having given the order, Zoe stepped out to the veranda where Edward
still was, having staid behind to give directions in regard to the horses.
"Zoe, love, I am very sorry," he said, as the man turned his horses'
heads, and drove away toward the stables.
"O Edward! how could you?" she exclaimed reproachfully, tears of
disappointment and vexation springing to her eyes.
"Darling, I really could not help it," he replied soothingly, drawing her
to him with a caress, and went on to tell exactly what had occurred.
"She is not a real lady," said Zoe, "or she never would have done a
thing like that."
"I agree with you, love," he said; "but I was sorry your reception of her
was so extremely ungracious and cold."
"Would you have had me play the hypocrite, Ned?" she asked
indignantly.
"No, Zoe, I should be very far from approving of that," he answered
gravely: "but while it was right and truthful not to express pleasure
which you did not feel, at her coming, you might, on the other hand,
have avoided absolute rudeness; you might have shaken hands with her,
and asked after her health and that of her father's family."
"I treated her as well as she deserved; and it does not make her any the
more welcome to me, that she has already been the means of drawing

down upon me a reproof from my husband's lips," Zoe said in
tremulous tones, and turning away from him with her eyes full of tears.
"My words were hardly intended as that, little wife," Edward responded
in a kindly tone, following her