The walk, or rather carriage road, leading up to the house was bordered by stately poplars and cedars, whose branches interlaced overhead, and formed a perfect arch. Beulah looked up at the dark- green depths among the cedars, and walked on with a feeling of contentment, nay, almost of happiness, which was a stranger to her heart. In front of the house, and in the center of a grassy circle, was a marble basin, from which a fountain ascended. She sat down on the edge of the reservoir, and, taking off her bonnet, gave unrestrained license to her wandering thoughts. Wherever her eyes turned, verdure, flowers, statuary met her gaze; the air was laden with the spicy fragrance of jasmines, and the low, musical babble of the fountain had something very soothing in its sound. With her keen appreciation of beauty, there was nothing needed to enhance her enjoyment; and she ceased to remember her sorrows. Before long, however, she was startled by the sight of several elegantly dressed ladies emerging from the house; at the same instant a handsome carriage, which she had not previously observed, drove from a turn in the walk and drew up to the door to receive them. Mrs. Chilton stood on the steps, exchanging smiles and polite nothings, and, as one of the party requested permission to break a sprig of geranium growing near, she gracefully offered to collect a bouquet, adding, as she severed some elegant clusters of heliotrope and jasmine: "Guy takes inordinate pride in his parterre, arranges and overlooks all the flowers himself. I often tell him I am jealous of my beautiful rivals; they monopolize his leisure so completely." "Nonsense! we know to our cost that you of all others need fear rivalry from no quarter. There; don't break any more. What superb taste the doctor has! This lovely spot comes nearer my ideal of European elegance than any place I know at the South. I suppose the fascination of his home makes him such a recluse! Why doesn't he visit more? He neglects us shamefully! He is such a favorite in society too; only I believe everybody is rather afraid of him. I shall make a most desperate effort to charm him so soon as an opportunity offers. Don't tell him I said so though--'forewarned, forearmed.'" All this was very volubly uttered by a dashing, showy young lady, dressed in the extreme of fashion, and bearing unmistakable marks of belonging to beau monde. She extended a hand eased in white kid, for the flowers, and looked steadily at the lady of the house as she spoke. "I shall not betray your designs, Miss Julia. Guy is a great lover of the beautiful, and I am not aware that anywhere in the book of fate is written the decree that he shall not marry again. Take care, you are tearing your lace point on that rose bush; let me disengage it." She stooped to rescue the cobweb wrapping, and, looking about her, Miss Julia exclaimed: "Is that you, Pauline? Come and kiss me! Why, you look as unsociable as your uncle, sitting there all alone!"