Adam said good-bye and went away.  An hour later, going down the Fontenoy road, he came upon a small brown figure, seated, hands over knees, among the blackberry bushes.

“Why, you partridge!” he exclaimed.  “You little brown prairie-hen, what are you doing so far from home?  Blackberries aren’t ripe.”

“No,” said Vinie.  “I was just a-walking down the road, and I just walked on.  I wasn’t tired.  I always think the country’s prettier down this way.  Did you come from Fontenoy, Mr. Adam?”

“Yes,” replied Adam, sitting down beside her.  “I went to see Lewis Rand—­not that I don’t like all the people there anyway.  They’re always mighty nice to me.”

Vinie dug the point of her dusty shoe into the dusty road.

“How ith Mr. Rand, Mr. Adam?”

“He ‘ith’ almost well,” answered Adam.  “He’s going down into the parlour to-night, and pretty soon he’s going home, and then he’ll be riding into town to his office.”

He looked kindly into the small, freckled, pretty face.  The heat of the day stood in moisture on Vinie’s brow, she had pushed back her sunbonnet, and the breeze stirred the damp tendrils of her hair.  “Tom must miss him,” said the hunter.

“Yeth, Tom does.”  Vinie drew toward her a blackberry branch, and studied the white bloom.  “Which do you think is the prettiest, Mr. Adam,—­Miss Unity or Miss Jacqueline?”

“Why, I don’t know,” answered Adam.  “They are both mighty pretty.”

“I think Miss Unity’s the prettiest,” said Vinie.  “It’s time I was walking back to Charlottesville.”  She rose and stood for a moment in the dusty road below the blackberry bushes, looking toward Fontenoy.  “I don’t suppose he asked after Tom and me, Mr. Adam?”

“Why, surely!” protested Adam, with cheerful mendacity.  “He asked after you both particularly.  He said he certainly would like a cup of water from your well.”

“Did he?” asked Vinie, and grew pink.  “That water’s mighty cold.”

“I’d like a cup of it myself,” said Adam.  “Since we are both walking to town, we might as well walk together.  Don’t you want me to break some cherry blossoms for your parlour?”

“Yeth, if you please,” replied Vinie, and the two went up the sunny road to Charlottesville.

Back at Fontenoy, in the blue room, Rand, resting in the easy chair beside the window, left the consideration of Adam and Adam’s talk, and gave his mind to the approaching hour in the Fontenoy drawing-room.  He both desired and dreaded that encounter.  Would Miss Churchill be there?  Aided by the homely friendliness of her cousin’s house on the Three-Notched Road, he had met her and conversed with her without being greatly conscious of any circumstance other than that she was altogether beautiful, and that he loved her.  But this was not Mrs. Selden’s, this was Fontenoy.  He had stood here hat in hand, within Miss Churchill’s memory—­certainly within the memory of the men of her family.  Well!