It was a very sensible thing to do.  He had a good deal of time on his hands before the city season, at least for him, would begin, and he had read that the autumn was an admirable time to visit the country of the French Broad.  How long a stop he would make at Midbranch would be determined by circumstances.  He was sorry that he would not be able to look upon Miss Roberta with the advantage of knowing her former lover, but it was something to know that she had had a lover.  With this fact in his mind he would be able to form a better estimate of her than he had formed before.

The man who lived in the cottage at the Green Sulphur Springs was somewhat surprised when Mr Croft arrived there, and desired to make arrangements, as before, for board, and the use of a saddle horse.  But, although it was not generally conceded, this man knew very well that there was no water in the world so suitable to remedy the wear and tear of a city life as that of the Green Sulphur Springs, and therefore nobody could consider the young gentleman foolish for coming back again while the season permitted.

Lawrence arrived at his cottage in the morning; and early in the afternoon of the same day he rode over to Midbranch.  He found the country a good deal changed, and he did not like the changes.  His road, which ran for much of its distance through the woods, was covered with leaves, some green, and some red and yellow, and he did not fancy the peculiar smell of these leaves, which reminded him, in some way, of that gathering together of the characters in old-fashioned comedies shortly before the fall of the curtain.  In many places where there used to be a thick shade, the foliage was now quite thin, and through it he could see a good deal of the sky.  The Virginia creepers, or “poison oaks,” whichever they were, were growing red upon the trunks of the trees as if they had been at table too long and showed it, and when he rode out of the woods he saw that the fields, which he remembered as wide, swelling slopes of green, with cattle and colts feeding here and there, were now being ploughed into corrugated stretches of monotonous drab and brown.  If he had been there through all the gradual changes of the season, he, probably, would have enjoyed them as much as people ordinarily do; but coming back in this way, the altered landscape slightly shocked him.

When he had turned into the Midbranch gate, but was still a considerable distance from the house, he involuntarily stopped his horse.  He could see the broad steps which crossed the fence of the lawn, and on one side of the platform on the top sat a lady whom he instantly recognized as Miss Roberta; and on the other side of the platform sat a gentleman.  These two occupied very much the same positions as Lawrence, himself, and Miss March had occupied when we first became acquainted with them.  Lawrence looked very sharply and earnestly at the gentleman.  Could it be Mr Brandon?  No, it was a much younger person.