some of them will be over this evening."

Croyden thought instantly of the girl he had seen coming out of the
Borden place, and who had directed him to Clarendon.

"Would it be safe to speak to the good-looking girls, too--those who
are my neighbors?" he asked, with a sly smile.

"Certainly, sir; if you tell them your name--and don't try to flirt
with them," Dick added, with a laugh. "Yonder is one, now--Miss
Carrington," nodding toward the far side of the street.

Croyden turned.--It was she! the girl of the blue-black hair and
slender silken ankles.

"She's Captain Carrington's granddaughter," Dick went on with the
Southerner's love for the definite in genealogy. "Her father and mother
both died when she was a little tot, sir, and they--that is, the
grandparents, sir--raised her. That's the Carrington place she's
turning in at. Ah----"

The girl glanced across and, recognizing Dick (and, it must be
admitted, her Clarendon inquirer as well), nodded.

Both men took off their hats. But Croyden noticed that the older man
could teach him much in the way it should be done. He did it shortly,
sharply, in the city way; Dick, slowly, deferentially, as though it
were an especial privilege to uncover to her.

"Miss Carrington is a beauty!" Croyden exclaimed, looking after her.
"Are there more like her, in Hampton?"

"I'm too old, sir, to be a competent judge," returned Dick, "but I
should say we have several who trot in the same class. I mean,
sir----"

"I understand!" laughed Croyden. "It's no disrespect in a Marylander, I
take it, when he compares the ladies with his race-horses."

"It's not, sir! At least, that's the way we of the older generation
feel; our ladies and our horses run pretty close together. But that spirit
is fast disappearing, sir! The younger ones are becoming--commercialized,
if you please. It's dollars first, and _then_ the ladies, with them--and
the horses nowhere. Though I don't say it's not wise. Horses and the
war have almost broken us, sir. We lost the dollars, or forgot about
them and they lost themselves, whichever way it was, sir. It's right that
our sons should start on a new track and run the course in their own
way--Yes, sir," suddenly recollecting himself, "Miss Carrington's a
pretty girl, and so's Miss Tayloe and Miss Lashiel and a heap more.
Indeed, sir, Hampton is famed on the Eastern Sho' for her women. I'll
attend to your baggage, and the telephone, sir, and if there is
anyth