“I must cast about to win my spurs!” said the younger Cary.  “In the mean time I’ll ask you again, come fourteen days.”

Late September passed into October.  The nuts ripened, the forests grew yellow and red, and the corn was stacked in the long, sere fields, above which, each morning, lay a white mist.  Goldenrod and farewell-summer faded, but sumach and alder-berry still held the fence corners.  The air was fragrant with wood smoke; all sound was softened, thin, and far away.  A frost fell and the persimmons grew red gold.  The song birds had gone south, but there were creatures enough left in the trees.  Sometimes, through the thin forest, in the blue distance, deer were seen; bears began to approach the corn-cribs, and in the unbroken wilderness wolves were heard at night.  Early and late the air struck cold, but each midday was a halcyon time.  In the last of October, on a still and coloured morning, Rand and Jacqueline, having shaken hands with the overseer and the slaves they were leaving, caressed the dogs, and said good-bye to the cat, quitted the house on the Three-Notched Road.  At the gate they turned, and, standing beneath the mimosa, looked back across the yard where the flowers had been touched by the frost, to the house and the sombre pines.  They stood in silence.  Jacqueline thought of the first evening beneath the mimosa, of the July dusk, and the cry of the whip-poor-will.  Rand thought, suddenly and inconsequently, of his father and mother, standing here at the gate as he had often seen them stand.  There was no mimosa then.—­Jacqueline turned, caught his hand, and pressed it to her lips.  He strained her in his arms and kissed her, and they entered the chaise which was to carry them to Richmond.  Before them lay a hundred miles of sunny road, three days’ companionship in the blue, autumnal weather.  A few moments, and the house, the pines, and the hurrying stream were lost to view.  “A long good-bye!” said Rand.  “In the spring we’ll enter Roselands!”

“You value it more than I,” answered Jacqueline.  “I loved the house behind us.  Loved!  I am speaking as though it were a thing of the long past.  Farewells are always sad.”

“I value it for you,” said Rand.  “Have I not chafed, ever since July, to see you in so poor a place?  Roselands is not ideal, but it is a fairer nest for my bird than that we’ve left!”

Jacqueline laughed. “‘Roselands is not ideal!’ I think Roselands quite grand enough!  Oh, Lewis, Lewis, how high you build!  Take care of the upper winds!”

“I’ll build firmly,” he answered.  “The winds may do their worst.  Here is the old road to Greenwood.  Now that the trees are bare, you can see the house.”