“I don’t know that I exactly understand,” said Miss Roberta.

“Well, for instance,” said Mr Croft, “take the case of marriage.  Don’t you think that a man is more apt to marry in spite of his belief that he would be much better off as a bachelor, than in consequence of a conviction that a Benedict’s life would suit him better?”

“That,” said she, “depends a good deal on the woman.”

As she said this Lawrence glanced quickly at her to observe the expression of her countenance.  The countenance plainly indicated that its owner had suddenly been made aware that the afternoon was slipping away, and that she had forgotten certain household duties that devolved upon her.

“Here comes Peggy,” she said, “and I must go into the house and give out supper.  Don’t you now think it would be well for you to follow our discussion of a Virginia supper by eating one?”

At this moment, there arrived at the bottom of the inside steps, a small girl, very black, very solemn, and very erect, with her hands folded in front of her very straight up-and-down calico frock, her features expressive of a wooden stolidity which nothing but a hammer or chisel could alter, and with large eyes fixed upon a far-away, which, apparently, had disappeared, leaving the eyes in a condition of idle out-go.

“Miss Rob,” said this wooden Peggy, “Aun’ Judy says it’s more’n time to come housekeep.”

“Which means,” said Miss Roberta, rising, “that I must go and get my key basket, and descend into the store-room.  Won’t you come in?  We shall find uncle on the back porch.”

Mr Croft declined with thanks, and took his leave, and the lady walked across the smooth grass to the house, followed by the rigid Peggy.

The young man approached his impatient horse, and, not without some difficulty, got himself mounted.  He had not that facility of sympathetically combining his own will and that of his horse which comes to men who from their early boyhood are wont to consider horses as objects quite as necessary to locomotion as shoes and stockings.  But Lawrence Croft was a fair graduate of a riding school, and he went away in very good style to his cottage at the Green Sulphur Springs.  “I believe,” he said to himself, as he rode through the woods, “that Miss March expects no more of me than she would expect of any very intimate friend.  I shall feel perfectly free, therefore, to continue my investigations regarding two points:  First, is she worth having? and:  Second, will she have me?  And I must be very careful not to get the position of these points reversed.”