“I will not attempt to deceive you, miss.  I cannot say why; but I feel uncomfortable—­not at my ease.  It were needless for me to repeat it; I am sure you know the cause.”

“Perhaps I do, sir; and still I cannot see in that sufficient cause for your going away.  Perhaps, sir, we are not thinking of the same cause,” she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“I particularly allude to what you yourself communicated to me.  I perceive Miss Alice is very unhappy, and I also am apprehensive that I may in some way be the cause of this.”

“I will tell you, sir, any special attention on your part to Alice will enrage her brother.  From motives known to himself, he is very much opposed to her marrying any one.  His reasons as given are that she is so peculiar in her disposition that she would only increase her own misery in making her husband miserable, which her eccentric nature would certainly insure.  I have heard that he has sometimes had a thought of carrying her to an asylum for the insane.  The world, however, is not charitable enough to believe this the true reason.  The judge is very grasping, and he has in his hands Alice’s fortune.  Some of his own family suppose he desires the use of it as long as possible.  There are many hard things said of him in relation to his influencing his mother to leave him the lion’s share of her estate.  This very home was intended for Alice, and though he had not spoken to his mother for years, in her last hours he came with a prepared will and insisted on her signing it.  She feared him (most people do) and affixed her name to the fatal document, which report says was never read to her.  After that she could not bear the presence of Alice, saying in her delirium:  ’My poor baby will hate me; I have turned her from her home.’  Alice has learned all this, and she has upbraided him with his conduct; for once provoked she does not even fear him.”

“Why do not her brothers-in-law inquire into this?  They are equally interested in the matter it seems to me.”

“Ah, sir! they are hoping that he may do them justice in his will.  I am sure this is the understanding with at least one of them, and neither of them will hazard a loss to protect the rights of Alice.  Large expectations are strong inducements to selfishness.  I am disclosing family matters, sir; but I have done so from a good motive.  It is but half disclosed to you; but the rest I must not tell.  You are not so dull as not from what I have said to be able to shape your conduct.  Alice is coming.”

The rain had ceased, and for two days the genial sun had drank up the moisture from the land, which underfoot was dry again.  The autumn had come, and the earth groaned with the rich products of this favored land.  The cotton-fields were whitening, and the yellow corn’s pendant ears hung heavily from their supporting stocks.  Fat cattle in the shade of the great trees switched away the teasing flies as they lazily ruminated.