upon him, her look meeting his.  Pinckney’s glance fell, and his cheeks grew redder.  Miss Warfield’s face did not change, but she rose and walked unattended through the centre of the ballroom to the door.  Pinckney’s seat was nearer it than hers; she passed him as if without seeing him, moving with unconscious grace, though it would not have been the custom at that time for a girl to cross so large a room alone.  Just then some one asked Miss Austin for a dance; and Pinckney, who was growing weary of it, went out on the piazza for a cigar, and then, attracted by the beauty of the night, strayed further than he knew, alone, along the cliffs above the sea.

The next day he was walking with Miss Austin, and they passed her, in her riding habit, waiting by the mounting stone; she bowed to Miss Austin alone, leaving him out, as it seemed to Pinckney, with exaggerated care.

“Is she not beautiful?” said Emily, ardently.

“Humph!” said Pinckney.  A short time after, as they were driving on the road to the Fort, he saw her again; she was riding alone, across country, through the rocky knolls and marshy pools that form the southern part of Rhode Island.  She had no groom lagging behind, but it was not so necessary then as now; and, indeed, a groom would have had a hard time to keep up with her, as she rattled up the granite slopes and down over logs and bushes with her bright bay horse.  The last Pinckney saw of her she disappeared over a rocky hill against the sky; her beautiful horse flecked with foam, quivering with happy animal life, and the girl calm as a figure carved in stone, with but the faintest touch of rose upon her face, as the pure profile was outlined one moment against the sunlit blue.

“How recklessly she rides!” whispered Miss Austin to him, and Pinckney said yes, absently, and, whipping up his horse, drove on, pretending to listen to his fiancee’s talk.  It seemed to be about dresses, and rings, and a coming visit to the B------s, at Nahant.  He had never seen a girl like her before; she was a puzzle to him.

“It is a great pity she is engaged to Mr. Breeze,” said Miss Austin; and Pinckney woke up with a start, for he was thinking of Miss Warneld too.

“Why?” said he.

“I don’t like him,” said Emily.  “He isn’t good enough for her.”

As this is a thing that women say of all wooers after they have won, and which the winner is usually at that period the first to admit, Pinckney paid little attention to this remark.  But that evening he met Miles Breeze, saw him, talked with him, and heard others talk of him.  A handsome man, physically; well made, well dressed, well fed; well bred, as breeding goes in dogs or horses; a good shot, a good sportsman, yachtsman, story-teller; a good fellow, with a weak mouth; a man of good old Maryland blood, yet red and healthy, who had come there in his yacht and had his horses sent by sea.  A well-appointed man, in short;