say it is, well, Carolina, little as I
like to say it, I really think that is your fault.  It would be so easy
for you to keep your eye on it and give me a hint.  I only ask these two
things of you."

"I'll try, Cousin Lois," Carolina always hastened to say, "though really
a crooked bonnet on you does not look as bad as it would on some women.
If you can understand me, it really seems to become you--it looks so
natural and so comfortable."

"Now, Carolina, that is only your dear way of trying to set me _a mon
aise_!  As if a crooked bonnet ever could look nice!"

Yet she cast a glance into the mirror as she spoke, and seeing that her
bonnet was even then a point offbut he told me
everything was gone. That, although the house was burned during the war,
and only the land itself remained, is the only thing I regret about our
loss.  I did love Guildford."

"But you never saw it!" exclaimed Kate.

Carolina's eye flashed with enthusiasm.

"I know that!  Nevertheless, I love it as I love no spot on earth
to-day."

There was a little pause, full of awkwardness for the two who had
accidentally brought Carolina's loss home to her.  To Carolina it
brought home a sense of real guilt.  If she had believed that Guildford
was lost she would have screamed aloud and gone mad before their very
eyes.  She was almost afraid to juggle with the truth even to protect
her sacred enthusiasm from their profane eyes.

It was St. Quentin who spoke