eglected, had grown incontinent. The garden itself was full of wild
green things coming up through the brown of last season's growth. But
in the grass the blue violets nestled, and Virginia picked some of these
and put them in Stephen's coat.

"You must keep them always," she said, "because we got them here."

They spied a seat beside a hoary trunk. There on many a spring day
Lionel Carvel had sat reading his Gazette. And there they rested now.
The sun hung low over the old-world gables in the street beyond the
wall, and in the level rays was an apple tree dazzling white, like a
bride. The sweet fragrance which the day draws from the earth lingered
in the air.

It was Virginia who broke the silence.

"Stephen, do you remember that fearful afternoon of the panic, when you
came over from Anne Brinsmade's to reassure me?"

"Yes, dear," he said. "But what made you think of it now?"

She did not answer him directly.

"I believed what you said, Stephen. But you were so strong, so calm,
so sure of yourself. I think that made me angry when I thought how
ridiculous I must have been."

He pressed her hand.

"You were not ridiculous, Jinny." She laughed.

"I was not as ridiculous as Mr. Cluyme with his bronze clock. But do
you know what I had under my arm--what I was saving of all the things I
owned?"

"No," he answered; "but I have often wondered." She blushed.

"This house--this place made me think of it. It was Dorothy Manners's
gown, and her necklace. I could not leave them. They were all the
remembrance I had of that night at Mr. Brinsmade's gate, when we came so
near to each other."

"Virginia," he said, "some force that we cannot understand has brought
us together, some force that we could not hinder. It is foolish for me
to say so, but on that day of the slave auction, when I first saw you,
I had a premonition about you that I have never admitted until now, even
to myself."

She started.

"Why, Stephen," she cried, "I felt the same way!"

"And then," he continued quickly, "it was strange that I should have
gone to Judge Whipple, who was an intimate of your father's--such a
singular intimate. And then came your party, and Glencoe, and that
curious incident at the Fair."

"When I was talking to the Prince, and looked up and saw you among all
those people."

He laughed.

"That was the most uncomfortable of all, for me."

"Stephen," she said, stirring the leaves at her feet, "you might have
taken me