by herself, I
kissed her good night.

Out of Hynds House maze, indeed! I had only to step back into my own
room to have it again enmesh me. For on the prie-dieu that had once
held Freeman Hynds's Bible and now held mine, was the lost diary.

CHAPTER XIII

FIRES OF YESTERDAY

I wasn't frightened, of course. There isn't anything terrifying in
finding a little old leather-covered book on a prie-dieu by one's
bedside. But it was some minutes before I could induce myself to
take up that yellowed old diary and examine it.

It begins the year of Freeman's return from college, "a Finish'd
Young Gentleman." He has refused to go abroad, considering that "our
Young Gentlemen have enough Fripperies & Fopperies at Home without
bringing worse Ones from Abroad." Brother Richard has been abroad
more than once, and Freeman does not "find him Improv'd save in
Outer Elegancies."

The only person that "much Travelling hath not Spoil'd," he finds,
is Mistress Emily Hope of Hope Plantation. "Shee was a Sweet Child,"
he remembers; and now that the dew of their youth is upon them both,
he finds her "of a Graceful and Delicate Shape, with the Most
Beautiful Countenance in the World, a Sweet & Modest Demeanour, a
Sprightly Wit, an Accomplish'd Mind, & a Heart Fix'd upon Virtue."

The estates are near each other, the families intimate friends.
Emily seems to like the boy. At any rate, she doesn't repel him. And
then returns Richard--the gay, the handsome, the irresistible
Richard--who adds to the stalwart comeliness of a colonial gentleman
the style, the grace, the cultivated manners of the Old World.

Almost fiercely Freeman notes the effect he produces, and how "Women
do catch an Admiration for him as't were a Pox."

Then he begins to set down, grimly, "The Sums my Father hath paid
for My Brother's Debts." A little later, he adds: "You Might Pour
the Atlantic Ocean full of Gold through his Pocketts & Overnight
would He empty Them." Richard, also, "Makes Choice of rake-hell
Companions," to his father's growing unease and indignation, his
mother's distress. But "Good God! how is all Forgiven the Beautiful,
the Gift'd!"

"Jezebel herself, that carries her Head so High, wears her Heart
upon her Sleeve, een like a simple Milkmaid! 'Tis a Rare Spectacle.
Sure there's a Fatality about this Man!"

* * * * *

"This Day dress'd I in my new Blue Cloathes, the which become me not
Ill & riding over to