"Yes. You are right. It would be better, and it would not worry papa and Cousin Josephus," she said, reflectively. "Well, then, if you were another man, I should begin by asking you what brought you to Virginia. No; that would not be at all polite, would it? I think I shall just say nothing at all." "Not till you let me assure you that I came because a fellow I know told me he had made a driving tour in this part, last year, with his wife, and had found it rather nice--and another reason was, that I wanted to get away from myself." "You are very flattering to our State," she said, bridling her head after a fashion he found both comical and sweet. She was silent a little while, then resumed, more gently: "I was thinking of what you last said, and maybe I have done you an injustice. Maybe you are to be pitied more than blamed." "Do you mean because I spoiled a good suit of clothes and hurt my horse's leg?" "No; not that. You are clearly not in need of sympathy. There! They are going to ring the supper-bell, and you must go and be introduced to my father, as his cousin. He is the dearest daddy in the world, and will be sure to try to make you come to visit us at the Hall." "Am I to understand this is a hint not to accept?" "I _could_ stay on here, you know," she said, in a businesslike way. "You are perfectly exasperating," he exclaimed, and then the summons came to go into the house. Just before they crossed the threshold, she appeared to have undergone another change of mind. Turning back swiftly, in a voice of exceeding sweetness she breathed into his ear these words: "Please, I am sorry. I ought not to keep forgetting, ought I, that you are a stranger within our gates, and a cousin, really?" "Is she a coquette?" Vance began to ask himself, but was interrupted by a _sortie_ of his host in search of him. Chapter III Vance Townsend had reckoned without his host when he made the declaration that he would relieve Miss Carlyle of his presence the following day. The kind owner of Wheatlands, indulgent to every man and beast upon his premises, had yet a way of holding on to and controlling guests that none might resist. Vance, however, did not try very hard to resist the invitation to stay at least until "Thursday, when the Carlyles would be running away home." An evening spent with the kind, simple, yet cultivated people who formed the little _coterie_ at Wheatlands (there was among them a widowed cousin with her unruly boy, and a cousin who had been unfortunate in his investments) had, somehow, quite upset our hero's notions upon many points.