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.
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