Arthur Brent found himself greatly interested in the girl. She was hardly a woman, and yet she was scarcely to be classed as a child. In her manner as well as in her appearance she seemed a sort of compromise between the two. She was certainly not pretty, yet Arthur’s quick scrutiny informed him that in a year or two she was going to be beautiful. It only needed a little further ripening of her womanhood to work that change. But as one cannot very well fall in love with a woman who is yet to be, Arthur Brent felt no suggestion of other sentiment than one of pleased admiration for the girl, mingled with respect for her queenly premature dignity. He observed, however, that her hair was nut brown and of luxuriant growth, her complexion, fair and clear in spite of a pronounced tan, and her eyes large, deep blue and finely overarched by their dark brows. Before he had time to think further concerning her, Aunt Polly returned and asked him to “snack.” “Dorothy will be down presently,” she said. “She’s quick at changing her costume.” Arthur was about to ask, “Who is Dorothy? And how does she come to be here?” but at that moment the girl herself came in, white gowned and as fresh of face as a newly blown rose is at sunrise. “It’s too bad, Aunt Polly,” she said, “that you had to order the snack. I ought to have got home in time to do my duty, and I would, only that Trump behaved badly--Trump is one of my dogs, Doctor--and led the others into mischief. He ran after a hare, and, of course, I had to stop and discipline him. That made me late.” “You keep your dogs under good control Miss--by the way how am I to call you?” “I don’t know just yet,” answered the girl with the frankness of a little child. “How so?” asked Arthur, as he laid a dainty slice of cold ham on her plate. “Why, don’t you see, I don’t know you yet. After we get acquainted I’ll tell you how to call me. I think I am going to like you, and if I do, you are to call me Dorothy. But of course I can’t tell yet. Maybe I shall not like you at all, and then--well, we’ll wait and see.” “Very well,” answered the young master of the plantation, amused by the girl’s extraordinary candor and simplicity. “I’ll call you Miss South till you make up your mind about liking or detesting me.” “Oh, no, not that,” the girl quickly answered. “That would be _too_ grown up. But you might say ‘Miss Dorothy,’ please, till I make up my mind about you.” “Very well, Miss Dorothy. Allow me to express a sincere hope that after you have come to know what sort of person I am, you’ll like me well enough to bid me drop the handle to your name.” “But why should you care whether a girl like me likes you or not?” “Why, because I am very strongly disposed to like a girl like you.” “How can you feel that way, when you don’t know me the least little bit?” “But I do know you a good deal more than ‘the least little bit,’” answered the young man smiling. “How can that be? I don’t understand.”