CHAPTER Second.
"Though fools spurn Hymen's gentle powers, We, who improve his golden hours, By sweet experience know That marriage, rightly understood, Gives to the tender and the good A paradise below." -- Cotton Mr.Allison had fully kept his promise to Sophie, and Ashlands was again the fine old place it had been prior to the war.

The family, consisting of the elder Mrs.Carrington, a young man, named George Boyd, a nephew of hers who had taken charge of the plantation, Sophie and her four children, had now been in possession for over a year.
Sophie, still an almost inconsolable mourner for the husband of her youth, lived a very retired life, devoting herself to his mother and his orphaned little ones.
Mrs.Ross, expecting to spend the fall and winter with them, had brought all her children and a governess, Miss Fisk, who undertook the tuition of the little Carringtons also during her stay at Ashlands, thus leaving the mothers more at liberty for the enjoyment of each other's society.
It was in the midst of school-hours that the Ion carriage came driving up the avenue, and Philip Ross, lifting his head from the slate over which he had been bending for the last half hour, rose hastily, threw down his pencil and hurried from the room, paying no attention to Miss Fisk's query, "Where are you going, Philip ?" or her command, "Come back instantly: it is quite contrary to rules for pupils to leave the school-room during the hours of recitation, without permission." Indeed he had reached the foot of the staircase before the last word had left her lips; she being very slow and precise in speech and action, while his movements were of the quickest.
"What now is to be done in this emergency ?" soliloquized the governess, unconsciously thinking aloud.

"Miss Gertrude Ross," turning to a girl of nine whose merry blue eyes were twinkling with fun, "follow your brother at once and inform him that I cannot permit any such act of insubordination; and he must return instantly to the performance of his duties." "Yes ma'am," and Gertrude vanished; glad enough of the opportunity to see for herself who were the new arrivals.

"Phil," she said, entering the drawing-room where the guests were already seated, "Miss Fisk says you're an insubordination and must come back instantly." "Gertude," said her mother, laughing "come and speak to Mr.Travilla and your little friends.

Why yes, Phil, to be sure; how came you here when you ought to be at your lessons ?" "Because I wanted to see Elsie Travilla," he answered nonchalantly.
"Yes, but you should have asked for permission.