The next morning, about an hour after breakfast, Lawrence was walking up and down on the grass in front of the house, smoking a cigar, and troubling his mind.  He had had no opportunity on the previous evening to be alone with Miss March, for the little party sat together in the parlor until they separated for bed; and so, of course, nothing was yet settled.  He was overstaying the time he had expected to spend here, and he felt nervous about it.  He had hoped to see Miss March after breakfast, but she seemed to have withdrawn herself entirely from observation.  Perhaps she considered that she had sufficiently rejected him on the previous morning, and that she now intended, except when she was sure of the company of the others, to remain in her room until he should go away.  But he had no such opinion in regard to their interview on Pine Top Hill.  He believed that he had been punished, not rejected, and that when he should be able to explain everything to her, he would be forgiven.  That, at least, was his earnest hope, and hope makes us believe almost anything.

But, although there were so many difficulties in his way, Lawrence had a friend in that household who still remained true to him.  Mrs Keswick, with sun-bonnet and umbrella, came out upon the porch, and said cheerily:  “I should think a gentleman like you would prefer to be with the ladies than to be walking about here by yourself.  They have gone to take a walk in the woods.  I should have said that Miss March has gone on ahead, with her little maid Peggy.  My niece was going with her, but I called her back to attend to some housekeeping matters for me, and I think she will be kept longer than she expected, for I have just sent Letty to her to be shown how to cut out a frock.  But you needn’t wait; you can go right through the flower-garden, and take the path over the fields into the woods.”  And, having concluded this bit of conscienceless and transparent management, the old lady remarked that she, herself, was going for a walk, and left him.

Lawrence lost no time in following her suggestions.  Throwing away his cigar, he hurried through the house and the little flower-garden, a gate at the back of which opened into a wide pasture-field.  This field sloped down gently to a branch, or little stream, which ran through the middle of it, and then the ground ascended until it reached the edge of the woods.  Following the well-defined path, he looked across the little valley before him, and could see, just inside the edge of the woods—­the trees and bushes being much more thinly attired than in the summer time—­the form of a lady in a light-colored dress with a red scarf upon her shoulders, sometimes moving slowly, sometimes stopping.  This was Roberta, and those woods were a far better place than the exposed summit of Pine Top Hill, in which to plight his troth, if it should be so that he should be able to do it, and there were doubtless paths in those woods through which they might afterwards wander, if things should turn out propitiously.  At all events, in those woods would he settle this affair.