Catch a Shooting Star jd edit 03 12 2012 html Read Free Page B

long gallery and stepped toward the foyer, she found herself looking back at that pricey punch bowl and the words on the catalogue screamed their proclamation to her from across the room.
                “Damn Yankee catalogue company,” she found herself repeating her father’s rant at the company that had compelled him to buy such an expensive item for such an extravagant engagement.
                “Engagement indeed,” she seethed at her own ironical thought.
                That crystal punch bowl, sold by those filthy Yankees to her loving father, who’d bought it in order to find her a husband, would certainly be her undoing.  If it had not been so expensive and if the party did not mean so much to Father, she would march right back in there and smash that Yankee punch bowl to bits. 
    To her, the Yankees were the cause to all of her problems.  From losing her mother in the fire and causing her brother to suffer tremendous pain before his death, to making Father spend his last dollar to buy a fancy bowl for a party in order to farm her out to the highest bidder, those Damned Yankees had ruined her life.  Cursing them inwardly while admonishing herself for the many occasions that she had done so out loud, she stomped out of the house and into the garden, where she found her solace on more confounding occasions than she cared to admit.
     
     

Chapter Two
     
     
               
    Savannah stood in front of the ornate mirror and studied the figure that stared back at her with an unsatisfied gaze.  The beautiful face was marred by a frown that caused the young visage to age before her.  The furrows between her brows seemed to deepen with sullen remorse and fearful trepidation as the thought of the party loomed over her like a dark cloud.  Her deep-seeded anxiety caused heaviness in her heart that was overshadowed only by the sadness that she would have to leave her beloved father and home if this night’s affair was successful.
    Fingering the delicate silk gown, she sighed heavily and rested her palm on her breast.  She felt the rapid beating of her heart beneath her fingertips and closed her eyes to calm her fears.
    A soft knock at her door indicated to her that the time had come for her to make her appearance downstairs in the ball room.  She glowered at the door and grumbled at the faceless messenger, “I’m coming!”
    The knocking at the door fell silent as she turned once more to the mirror.  Narrowing her eyes at the woman who did the same to her, she threw the silver brush at the scowling face.  The mirror shattered, raining slivers of glass around her feet.
    With a huff of indifference at the fate of the mirror, she kicked a large piece of glass across the carpeted floor and turned toward the door to face her future.
    With all the composure that she could muster, she walked proudly down the grand staircase to the foyer.  As she stepped onto the marble foyer floor and turned on the ball of her foot toward the long gallery that flanked the grand ball room, she paused to look at the portrait of her mother, which had been spared the blazing fate of most of the paintings that had been destroyed by Sherman and his troops.
    The beautiful woman in the portrait stared lovingly back at her as if her mother was truly present.  The soft smile seemed to approve of Savannah’s attire and poise, for the brushed green eyes twinkled with satisfaction at her daughter’s confidence as the girl left the painting and then glided passed the gallery.
    Pausing once more in the room which was filled with food and drinks and milling guests who had spilled out from the great expanse of the grand ball room, she smiled sheepishly at the attendees and then gallantly, regally, stepped into the ball room.
    She heard the room hush from the din that had filled it and then whispers of approval and murmurs of adoration reanimated the room as guests swept across the floor to greet her.  She