."

"Nonsense," said the Colonel. "I won't let the Judge interfere."

"It isn't that, sir. I shall have to go by the two o'clock train, I
fear."

The Colonel turned to Virginia, who, meanwhile, had sat silently by.

"Jinny," he said, "we must contrive to keep him."

She slid off the railing.

"I'm afraid he is determined, Pa," she answered. "But perhaps Mr. Brice
would like to see a little of the place before he goes. It is very
primitive," she explained, "not much like yours in the East."

Stephen thanked her, and bowed to the Colonel. And so she led him past
the low, crooked outbuildings at the back, where he saw old Uncle
Ben busy over the preparation of his dinner, and frisky Rosetta, his
daughter, playing with one of the Colonel's setters. Then Virginia took
a well-worn path, on each side of which the high grass bent with its
load of seed, which entered the wood. Oaks and hickories and walnuts
and persimmons spread out in a glade, and the wild grape twisted
fantastically around the trunks. All this beauty seemed but a fit
setting to the strong girlish figure in the pink frock before him.
So absorbed was he in contemplation of this, and in wondering whether
indeed she were to marry her cousin, Clarence Colfax, that he did not
see the wonders of view unrolling in front of him. She stopped at length
beside a great patch of wild race bushes. They were on the edge of the
bluff, and in front of them a little rustic summer-house, with seats on
its five sides. Here Virginia sat down. But Stephen, going to the edge,
stood and marvelled. Far, far below him, down the wooded steep, shot
the crystal Meramec, chafing over the shallow gravel beds and tearing
headlong at the deep passes.

Beyond, the dimpled green hills rose and fell, and the stream ran indigo
and silver. A hawk soared over the water, the only living creature in
all that wilderness.

The glory of the place stirred his blood. And when at length he turned,
he saw that the girl was watching him.

"It is very beautiful," he said.

Virginia had taken other young men here, and they had looked only upon
her. And yet she was not offended. This sincerity now was as new to her
as that with which he had surprised her in the Judge's room.

And she was not quite at her ease. A reply to those simple words of his
was impossible. At honest Tom Catherwood in the same situation she would
have laughed, Clarence never so much as glanced at scenery. Her replies
to him w