girl, boon companion ever to her father, old Daniel Churchill; for
her mother she had lost when she was still young. The Churchills
maintained a city establishment in the environs of Washington itself,
although that was not much removed from their plantation in the old
State of Maryland. Elmhurst, this Washington estate was called, and it
was well known there, with its straight road approaching and its great
trees and its wide-doored halls--whereby the road itself seemed to run
straight through the house and appear beyond--and its tall white pillars
and hospitable galleries, now in the springtime enclosed in green. I
need not state that now, having finished the business of the day, or,
rather, of the night, Elmhurst, home of Elisabeth, was my immediate
Mecca.

I had clad myself as well as I could in the fashion of my time, and
flattered myself, as I looked in my little mirror, that I made none such
bad figure of a man. I was tall enough, and straight, thin with long
hours afoot or in the saddle, bronzed to a good color, and if health did
not show on my face, at least I felt it myself in the lightness of my
step, in the contentedness of my heart with all of life, in my general
assurance that all in the world meant well toward me and that everything
in the world would do well by me. We shall see what license there was
for this.

As to Elisabeth Churchill, it might have been in line with a
Maryland-custom had she generally been known as Betty; but Betty she
never was called, although that diminutive was applied to her aunt,
Jennings, twice as large as she, after whom she had been named. Betty
implies a snub nose; Elisabeth's was clean-cut and straight. Betty runs
for a saucy mouth and a short one; Elisabeth's was red and curved, but
firm and wide enough for strength and charity as well. Betty spells
round eyes, with brows arched above them as though in query and
curiosity; the eyes of Elisabeth were long, her brows long and straight
and delicately fine. A Betty might even have red hair; Elisabeth's was
brown in most lights, and so liquid smooth that almost I was disposed to
call it dense rather than thick. Betty would seem to indicate a nature
impulsive, gay, and free from care; on the other hand, it was to be said
of Elisabeth that she was logical beyond her kind--a trait which she got
from her mother, a daughter of old Judge Henry Gooch, of our Superior
Court. Yet, disposed as she always was to be logical in her conclu