Part 5 (1/2)

Miss Roberta had a way of looking up, and looking down at the same time, particularly when she had asked a question and was waiting for the answer. Her face would be turned a little down, but her eyes would look up and give a very charming expression to those upturned eyes; and if she happened to allow the smile, with which she ceased speaking, to remain upon her pretty lips, she generally had an answer of some sort very soon. If for no other reason, it would be given that she might ask another question. It was in this manner she said to Lawrence: ”Do you really go away from us to-morrow?”

”Yes,” said he, ”I shall push on.”

”Do you not find the country very beautiful at this season?” asked Miss Roberta, after a few steps in silence.

”I don't like autumn,” answered Lawrence. ”Everything is drying up and dying. I would rather see things dead.”

Roberta looked at him without turning her head. ”But it will be just as bad in North Carolina,” she said.

”There is an autumn in ourselves,” he answered, ”just as much as there is in Nature. I won't see so much of that down there.”

”In some cases,” said Roberta, slowly, ”autumn is impossible.”

They had reached the bottom of the steps, and Lawrence turned and looked toward her. ”Do you mean,” he asked, ”when there has been no real summer?”

Roberta laughed. ”Of course,” said she, ”if there has been no summer there can be no autumn. But you know there are places where it is summer all the time. Would you like to live in such a clime?”

Lawrence Croft put one foot on the step, and then he drew it back. ”Miss March,” said he, ”my train does not leave until the afternoon, and I am coming over here in the morning to have one more walk in the woods with you. May I?”

”Certainly,” she said, ”I shall be delighted; that is, if you can overlook the fact that it is autumn.”

When Miss Roberta returned to the house she found Junius Keswick sitting on a bench on the porch. She went over to him, and took a seat at the other end of the bench.

”So your gentleman is gone,” he said.

”Yes,” she answered, ”but only for the present. He is coming back in the morning.”

”What for?” asked Keswick, a little abruptly.

Miss Roberta took off her hat, for there was no need of a hat on a shaded porch, and holding it by the ribbons, she let it gently slide down toward her feet. ”He is coming,” she said, speaking rather slowly, ”to take a walk with me, and I know very well that when we have reached some place where he is sure there is no one to hear him, he is going to tell me that he loves me; that he did not intend to speak quite so soon, but that circ.u.mstances have made it impossible for him to restrain himself any longer, and he will ask me to be his wife.”

”And what are you going to say to him?” asked Keswick.

”I don't know,” replied Roberta, her eyes fixed upon the hat which she still held by its long ribbons.

The next morning Junius Keswick, who had been up a long, long time before breakfast, sat, after that meal, looking at Roberta who was reading a book in the parlor. ”She is a strange girl,” thought he. ”I cannot understand her. How is it possible that she can sit there so placidly reading that volume of Huxley, which I know she never saw before and which she has opened just about the middle, on a morning when she is expecting a man who will say things to her which may change her whole life. I could almost imagine that she has forgotten all about it.”

Peggy, who had just entered the room to inform her mistress that Aunt Judy was ready for her, stood in rigid uprightness, her torpid eyes settled upon the lady. ”I reckon,” so ran the thought within the mazes of her dark little interior, ”dat Miss Rob's wuss disgruntled dan she was dat ebenin' when I make my cake, fur she got two dif'ent kinds o'

shoes on.”

The morning went on, and Keswick found that he must go out again for a walk, although he had rambled several miles before breakfast. After her household duties had been completed, Miss Roberta took her book out to the porch; and about noon when her uncle came out and made some remarks upon the beauty of the day, she turned over the page at which she had opened the volume just after breakfast. An hour later Peggy brought her some luncheon, and felt it to be her duty to inform Miss Rob that she still wore one old boot and a new one. When Roberta returned to the porch after making a suitable change, she found Keswick there looking a little tired.

”Has your friend gone?” he asked, in a very quiet tone.

”He has not come yet,” she answered.

”Not come!” exclaimed Keswick. ”That's odd! However, there are two hours yet before dinner.”

The two hours pa.s.sed and no Lawrence Croft appeared; nor came he at all that day. About dusk the man at the Green Sulphur Springs rode over with a note from Mr Croft. The note was to Miss March, of course, and it simply stated that the writer was very sorry he could not keep the appointment he had made with her, but that it had suddenly become necessary for him to return to the North without continuing the journey he had planned; that he was much grieved to be deprived of the opportunity of seeing her again; but that he would give himself the pleasure, at the earliest possible moment, of calling on Miss March when she arrived in New York.