By the time they had reached Wheeling, Betty had quite parted with whatever superficial prejudice she might have had concerning river-men.  This particular one was evidently a very nice river-man, an exception to his kind.  She permitted him to assume the burden of her plans, and no longer scanned the pages of her Badger’s and Porter’s with a puckered brow.  It reposed at the bottom of her satchel.  He made choice of the steamer on which she should continue her journey, and thoughtfully chose The Naiad—­a slow boat, with no reputation for speed to sustain.  It meant two or three days longer on the river, but what of that?  There would be no temptation in the engine-room to attach a casual wrench or so to the safety-valve as an offset to the builder’s lack of confidence in his own boilers.  He saw to it that her state-room was well aft—­steamers had a trick of blowing up forward.

Ne had now reached a state of the utmost satisfaction with himself and the situation.  Betty was friendly and charming.  He walked with her, and he talked with her by the hour; and always he was being entangled deeper and deeper in the web of her attraction.  “When alone he would pace the deck recalling every word she had spoken.  There was that little air of high breeding which was Betty’s that fascinated him.  He had known something of the other sort, those who had arrived at prosperity with manners and speech that still reflected the meaner condition from which they had risen.

“I haven’t a thing to offer her—­this is plain madness of mine!” he kept telling himself, and then the expression of his face would become grim and determined.  No more of the river for him —­he’d get hold of some land and go to raising cotton; that was the way money was made.

Slow as The Naiad was, the days passed much too swiftly for him.  When Memphis was reached their friendly intercourse would come to an end.  There would be her brother, of whom she had occasionally spoken—­he would be pretty certain to have the ideas of his class.

As for Betty, she liked this tall fellow who helped her through the fatigue of those long days, when there was only the unbroken sweep of the forest on either hand, with here and there a clearing where some outrageous soul was making a home for himself.  The shores became duller, wilder, more uninteresting as they advanced, and then at last they entered the Mississippi, and she was almost home.

Betty was not unexcited by the prospect.  She would be the mistress of the most splendid place in West Tennessee.  She secretly aspired to be a brilliant hostess.  She could remember when the doors of Belle Plain were open to whoever had the least claim to distinction—­statesmen and speculators in land; men who were promoting those great schemes of improvement, canals and railroads; hard-featured heroes of the two wars with England—­a diminishing group; the men of the modern army, the pathfinders,