These judgments of myself seemed to contrast the ladies informingly.
The impression that Miss Caroline was frivolous--or even worse--became current the day after her arrival in Little Arcady.

Arrayed in a lavender silk dress of many flounces, with bonnet beribboned gayly beyond her years, shod in low walking shoes of heel iniquitously high, a toe minute and shining and an instep ornate to an unholy degree, bearing a slender gold-tipped staff of polished ebony to assist theatrically in her progress, and bestowing placid, patronizing looks to right and left, she had flounced into Main Street, followed ceremoniously by her black chattel, himself set up with a palpable and shameless pride in his degradation, saluting stiffly and with an artificial grandeur those whom he would otherwise have greeted with the unstudied ease of long association.
This procession regaled both Main and Washington streets, where Miss Caroline visited our shops to make inconsiderable purchases and many friends.

It was a function the pleasant data whereof I was not long in collecting.
Her first conquest was Chester Pierce, our excellent hardware merchant, whom she commissioned to make a needed repair to her range.

It was a simple business matter, and Chester Pierce is a simple business person of plain manners.

But as he slouched comfortably upon his counter and listened to Miss Caroline's condescending exposition of her needs, he became sensible of a strange influence stealing upon him.