“Then I’ll have a glass, and I’ll just look at the sweetmeats.  It is late and I must be going home.  Vinie, why don’t you have your gate mended?”

“It always was broken,” said Vinie.  “I’m always meaning to have it mended.  Will you sit on the porch, ma’am?  It’s cooler than inside.”

The short path was lined with zinnias and with prince’s feather and the porch covered with a shady grapevine.  Vinie brought a pitcher beaded with cool well water, and then a salver spread with fanciful shapes cut from the delicate green rind of melon and ready for preserving.  Mrs. Selden drank the well water and approved Vinie’s skill; then, “Your brother’s gone to North Garden,” she said abruptly.  “Mr. Rand’s affairs must keep him busy.”

“Yeth, ma’am.  Tom comes and goes,” said Vinie wistfully.  “I wish he’d be Governor of Virginia.”

“Who?  Tom?”

The girl laughed.  “La, no, ma’am!  Mr. Rand.”  The tone conveyed, pleasantly enough, both the grotesque impossibility of Mr. Tom Mocket aspiring to such a post, and the eminent suitability of its lying in the fortunes of Lewis Rand.  Vinie, shy and pink and faintly pretty in her shell calico, leaned against the wooden railing beneath the grapevine, and appealed to her visitor:  “I’m always after Tom to make him say he’ll run.  Tom can do a great deal with him—­he always could.  I reckon all his friends want him to take the nomination.  But Tom says he has a bigger thing in mind—­”

“Who?  Tom?”

“No, ma’am.  Mr. Rand.  I forgot!  Tom said I wasn’t to tell that to any one.”  Vinie looked distressed.  “Won’t you have another glass of water, ma’am?  The drouth this year is something awful—­all the corn burned up and the tobacco failing.  Tom will be back soon from North Garden.  Yeth, ma’am, he works right hard for Mr. Rand.  The last time he was here he said that whether he ended in a palace or a dungeon, he’d remember Tom somewhere towards the last.  Yeth, ma’am, it was a funny thing to say, but he was always mighty fond of Tom.”

“Does he come here often?”

“Right often,—­when there’s work to be done at night, or when he wants to meet some one at a quieter place than the office.  He’s always known he could use this house as he pleased,” Vinie ended simply.  “Tom and I would go barefoot over fire for Mr. Rand.”

“Well, my dear, I hope he won’t ask you to,” said her visitor, with dryness.  She rose.  “I’ve a long drive before me, so I’ll not sit longer.  Who’s that—­I left my glasses in the coach—­who’s that speaking to Gabriel?”

“It’s Mr. Gaudylock.”

“Gaudylock!  He’s not been in Albemarle for a year!  When did he come back?”

“Just the other day, ma’am.”  A smile crept over Vinie’s face.  “He brought me a comb like the Spanish women wear.  He’s a mighty kind man—­Mr. Gaudylock.”

The hunter and Mrs. Selden met at the broken gate.  “I am glad to see you back, Adam,” she said.  “You’re a rolling stone, but all the same we’re fond of you in Albemarle.”