On their way back they passed the seminary just as a group of girls came out accompanied by a teacher, and equipped apparently for a walk. There were thirty or more of them, but Roy saw only one, and of her he caught a glimpse, as she tossed back her golden brown curls and bowed familiarly to Charlie, whose hat went up and whose horses sheered just enough to make his mother utter an exclamation of fear. She, too, had recognized the wicked Edna by her dress, had seen the bow to Charlie, with Charlie’s acknowledgment of it, and when the gay horses were trotting soberly down the street, she asked,— “Who was that girl you bowed to, Charlie? the bold-faced thing with curls, I mean.” Now if she had left off that last, the chances are that Charlie would have told her at once, for he knew just whom she meant. A dozen of the girls had bowed to him, but he had had but _one_ in his mind when he lifted his hat so gracefully, and it hurt him to hear her called “a bold-faced thing.” So he answered with the utmost nonchalance. “I don’t know which one you mean. I bowed to them all collectively, and to no one individually. They are girls from the seminary.” “Yes, I know; but I mean the one in blue with the long curls.” “Big is she?” and Charlie tried to think. “No, very small.” “Dark face and turned-up nose?” was the next query. “No, indeed; fair-faced, but as to her nose I did not notice. I think she was on the same car with us.” “Oh, I guess you must mean Edna Browning. She’s short, and has long curls,” and Charlie just touched his spirited horses, causing them to bound so suddenly as to jerk his mother’s head backward, making her teeth strike together with such force as to hurt her lip; but she asked no more questions with regard to Edna Browning, who had recognized in Charlie Churchill’s companions her fellow-passengers in the car, and was wondering if that dumpy woman and that muff of a man could be the brother and mother whom Charlie had said he was expecting when she met him that morning in the street. CHAPTER II. AT LEIGHTON HOMESTEAD. It was a magnificent old place, and had borne the name of Leighton Homestead, or Leighton Place, ever since the quarrel between the two brothers, Arthur and Robert, as to which should have the property in New York, and which should have the old family house on the Hudson, thirty miles or so below Albany, and in plain sight of the Catskills. To Arthur, the elder, the place had come at last, while Robert took the buildings on Broadway, and made a fortune from them, and dying without family, left it all to his brother’s son and namesake, who, after his father’s death, was the richest boy for many miles around.