He had scarcely finished his pipe when Dorothy came into the hall accompanied by a negro girl of about fourteen years, who bore a work basket with her. Seating herself, Dorothy gave the girl some instruction concerning the knitting she had been doing, and added: “You may sit in the back porch to-day. It is warm.” “Is it too warm, Miss Dorothy, for you to make a little excursion with me to the stables?” “Certainly not,” she quickly answered. “I’ll go at once.” “Thank you,” he said, “and we’ll stop in the orchard on our way back and get some June apples. I remember where the trees are.” “You want me to show you the horses, I suppose,” she said as the two set off side by side. “No; any of the negroes could do that. I want you to render me a more skilled service.” “What is it?” “I want you, please, to pick out a horse for me to ride while I stay at Wyanoke.” “While you stay at Wyanoke!” echoed the girl. “Why, that will be for all the time, of course.” “I hardly think so,” answered the young man, with a touch of not altogether pleased uncertainty in his tone. “You see I have important work to do, which I cannot do anywhere but in a great city--or at any rate,”--as the glamour of the easy, polished and altogether delightful contentment of Virginia life came over him anew, and its attractiveness sang like a siren in his ears,--“at any rate it cannot be so well done anywhere else as in a large city. I have come down here to Virginia only to see what duties I have to do here. If I find I can finish them in a few months or a year, I shall go back to my more important work.” The girl was silent for a time, as if pondering his words. Finally she said: “Is there anything more important than to look after your estate? You see I don’t understand things very well.” “Perhaps it is best that you never shall,” he answered. “And to most men the task of looking after an ancestral estate, and managing a plantation with more than a hundred negroes--” “There are a hundred and eighty seven in all, if you count big and little, old and young together,” broke in the girl. “Are there? How did you come to know the figures so precisely?” “Why, I keep the plantation book, you know.” “I didn’t know,” he answered. “Yes,” she said, “I’ve kept it ever since I came to Wyanoke three or four years ago. You see your uncle didn’t like to bother with details, and so I took this off his hands, when I was so young that I wrote a great big, sprawling hand and spelled my words ever so queerly. But I wanted to help Uncle Robert. You see I liked him. If you’d rather keep the plantation book yourself, I’ll give it up to you when we go back to the house.” “I would much rather have you keep it, at least until you make up your mind whether you like me or not. Then, if you don’t like me I’ll take the book.”