She was thinking of Jim, and feeling pitiful and sad over her old friend who must break away from every home association, and far from kindred and family, among strange faces and unfamiliar surroundings, make for himself a new life. She was sorry for Jim--grieved for his pain in parting, for his disappointment in regard to herself, for her own inability to give him the love he longed for. She would have loved him had it been in her power; she honestly regretted that the calm, true sisterly affection she felt for him could not be converted into something warmer. Her friends wished it; his friends wished it. It was the natural and proper thing to have happened, and yet with her it had not happened. With Pocahontas, marriage was a very sacred thing, not to be contemplated lightly, or entered into at all without the sanctification of a pure, unselfish love. If she should marry Jim now, it would be with the knowledge that the depths of her nature were unstirred, the true rich gold still hidden. It did not seem to her that her old playfellow's hand was the one destined to stir the one, or discover the other. She might judge wrongly, but so it appeared to her, and she was too loyal to Jim to imagine for an instant that he would be satisfied with aught save her very best. The evening freshened as the sun went down, a vagrant breeze stole out from some leafy covert and disported itself blithely. The big Irish setter moved from the corner to the top step, and ceased yawning. An old colored man appearing from behind the house took his way across the lawn in quest of the colts. The dog, with his interest in life reawakened, bounded off the steps prepared to lend valuable assistance, but was diverted from this laudable object by the approach of two gentlemen who must be welcomed riotously. Pocahontas, rising, advanced out of the shadow to meet them--Jim Byrd, and a tall broad-shouldered man with a great silky red beard, her brother-in-law, Mr. Royall Garnett. CHAPTER IV. After a joyous exchange of greeting with her brother-in-law, of whom she was unusually fond, and a sweet, gracious welcome to her old play-fellow, Pocahontas withdrew to tell her mother of their arrival, and to assure herself that every thing was perfectly arranged for Jim's last meal among them.