and disappeared below the cypresses on the slope.
"Yo' mustn't be mad," she said, turning in explanation to her companion,
"but we have been here too long already, and it's better that I should
be seen coming home with him than yo'."

"Then this sectional interference does not touch him?" said Courtland
bitterly.

"No. He's an Englishman; his father was a known friend of the
Confederacy, and bought their cotton bonds."

She stopped, gazing into Courtland's face with a pretty vague impatience
and a slight pouting of her lip.

"Co'nnle!"

"Miss Sally."

"Yo' say yo' had known me for three years before yo' saw me. Well, we
met once before we ever spoke to each other!"

Courtland looked in her laughing eyes with admiring wonder. "When?" he
asked.

"The first day yo' came! Yo' moved the ladder when I was on the cornice,
and I walked all ever yo' head. And, like a gentleman, yo' never said a
word about it. I reckon I stood on yo' head for five minutes."

"Not as long as that," said Courtland laughing, "if I remember rightly."

"Yes," said Miss Sally with dancing eyes. "I, a So'th'n girl, actually
set my foot on the head of a No'th'n scum of a co'nnle! My!"

"Let that satisfy your friends then."

"No! I want to apologize. Sit down, co'nnle."

"But, Miss Sally"--

"Sit down, quick!"

He did so, seating himself sideways on the bank. Miss Sally stood beside
him.

"Take off yo' hat, sir."

He obeyed smilingly. Miss Sally suddenly slipped behind him. He felt the
soft touch of her small hands on his shoulders; warm breath stirred the
roots of his hair, and then--the light pressure on his scalp of what
seemed the lips of a child.

He leaped to his feet, yet before he could turn completely round--a
difficulty the young lady had evidently calculated upon--he was too
late! The floating draperies of the artful and shameless Miss Sally were
already disappearing among the tombs in the direction of the hollow.

CHAPTER V.

The house occupied by the manager of the Drummond Syndicate in
Redlands--the former residence of a local lawyer and justice of the
peace--was not large, but had an imposing portico of wooden Doric
columns, which extended to the roof and fronted the main street. The
all-pervading creeper closely covered it; the sidewalk before it was
shaded by a row of broad-leaved ailantus. The front room, with French
windows opening on the portico, was used by Colonel Courtland as a
general office; beyond