This morning, as she sits in the summer-house, her brow is resting on her hand, and a shadow is resting on her brow. Had Marian cause for sorrow? None except that her cousin Robert, who had recently returned from England, had that morning offered her his hand and been partially refused. Yet why should Marian refuse him whom many a proud lady in the courtly halls of England would not refuse? Did she remember one who, years ago, in the green old woods of Virginia, awakened within her childish heart a feeling which, though it might have slumbered since, was still there in all its freshness? Yes, she did remember him, although she struggled hard to conquer each feeling that was interwoven with a thought of him. Nearly three months he had been within twenty miles of her, and yet no word or message had been received, and Marian’s heart swelled with resentment toward the young man, whose fleet steed even then could scarce keep pace with his master’s eager wishes to press onward. From her earliest childhood she had looked upon Robert as a brother, and now that he was offered as a husband, her heart rebelled, although pride occasionally whispered, “Do it,—marry him,—then see what George Wilder will say;” but Marian had too much good sense long to listen to the promptings of pride, and the shadow on her face is occasioned by a fear that she had remembered so long and so faithfully only to find herself uncared for and forgotten. Meantime, the sound of horses’ feet near her father’s house had brought to the fence half a dozen negroes and half as many dogs, all ready in their own way to welcome the new-comers. After giving his horse in charge of the negroes, George proceeded to the house, where he was cordially received by Mrs. Gorton, who could scarcely recognize the school-boy George in the tall, fine-looking young man before her. Almost his first inquiry was for Marian. Mrs. Gorton did not know where she was, but old Sukey, who had known George in Virginia, now hobbled in, and after a few tears and a great many “Lor’ bless you’s,” and inquiries about “old Virginny,” she managed to tell him that Marian was in the garden, and that she would call her; but George prevented her, saying he would go himself.