“Then it must be beautiful,” said Miss Dandridge, “for this rose-coloured muslin came from London.  Ah, you looked so angry and so beaten on Wednesday, when you came back from Charlottesville!”

“I was not angry, and I was not beaten.”

“Fie!  You mean that your brother was.”

“I mean nothing of the kind!” cried the younger Cary hotly.  “My brother, at the importunity of his friends, and for the good of the county, consented to stand against this pet of Jefferson’s, this—­this vaurien Lewis Rand.  Some one had to stand.  He knew what the result would be.  ’Twas but a skirmish—­just a seat in a tri-colour Republican House of Delegates!  My faith! the honour’s not great.  But wait awhile, Miss Dandridge!  The real battle’s not yet.  Beaten!  Rands, Miss Dandridge, don’t beat Carys!”

“La, so warm!” exclaimed Unity.  “I have never seen a man love a brother so!”

“Ludwell Cary is worthy of any man’s love—­or any woman’s either!”

“The pair of you ought to be put in the wax-works, and labelled ’The Loving Brothers.’  When you marry, there’ll be no love left for your wife.”

“Just you try and see.”

“The man whom I marry,” said Miss Dandridge, “must have no thought but for me.  He must swoon if I frown, laugh if I smile, weep if I sigh, be altogether desperate if I look another way.  I am like Falkland in The Rivals.  Heigho! this is the bend of the road, Mr. Cary.”

“I am altogether desperate when you look another way.  When you looked at Ned Hunter last night, I wanted to blow his brains out.  He hasn’t any, but I should like to try.”

“Then you would have been hanged for murder,” remarked Miss Dandridge.  “Think how terrible that would be for us all!—­Did you know that Mr. Hunter once dined with General Washington?”

“You are a royal coquette.  See, there is the honeysuckle!  If I gather it for you, will you wear one spray to-night?”

“It is a very stiff flower,” said Unity thoughtfully, “and I have an idea that Mr. Hunter will bring me violets.  But—­I will see if I can find a place for one small spray.”

She sat down upon a fallen tree, took her round chin into her hand, and studied the point of her morocco shoe, while her cavalier, not without detriment to his pumps and silk stockings, scrambled up the red bank to the rosy flowers.

The honeysuckles did not grow upon the main road, but upon a rough and narrow cross-country track, little used except by horsemen pressed for time.  Now, clear through the still afternoon, a sound of hoofs gave warning that riders were coming down the steep and dangerous hill beyond the turn.  Unity looked up with interest, and Fairfax Cary paused with his hand upon a coral bough.  Suddenly there was a change in the beat, then a frightened shout, and a sound of rolling stones and a wild clatter of hoofs.  Unity sprang to her feet; Cary came down the bank at a run, tossed her his armful of blossoms, and was in the middle of the road in time to seize by the bridle the riderless horse which came plunging around the bend.