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The Confounding of
Camelia

By
Anne Douglas Sedgwick

Author of
"The Dull Miss Archinard," Etc.

New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1899

Copyright, 1899, by
Charles Scribner's Sons

MANHATTAN PRESS
474 W. BROADWAY
NEW YORK


_TO

"CHARLIE" AND "JIMMIE"_




The Confounding of Camelia




CHAPTER I


When Camelia came down into the country after her second London season,
descended lightly upon the home of her forefathers, her coming
unannounced, and as much a matter of caprice as had been her long
absence, a slowly growing opinion, an opinion that had begun to form
itself during Camelia's most irresponsible girlhood, became clearly
defined, a judgment fixed and apparently irrevocable. The Patons had
always been good, quiet people; absolutely undistinguished, were it not
that the superlative quality of their tranquil excellence gave a certain
distinction. There were no black sheep in their annals, and a black
sheep gives, by contrast, a brilliancy lacking to unaccented bucolic
groupings, strikes a note of interest at any rate; but none of