Ruth thought of what the old mammy at Dr. Cary’s had told her. She wished to change the subject. “Did he say where we met?” she asked, laughing and blushing. “No, only said he had met you.” “He caught me up in a cherry-tree.” “What! Well, he’s a nice fellow,” said her father, and Ruth had begun to think so too. CHAPTER XXVIII MRS. WELCH ARRIVES AND GIVES HER FIRST LESSON IN ENTERPRISE The next day, Still called to see Major Welch and made him a proposition to sell him a part of the Red Rock place. On thinking it over, he said, he believed he’d rather have the Major as a near neighbor than to have him farther off, and he also believed that the Major would find it safer to buy from him a place he had got under decree of court, and had already held quietly for some time, than to buy a place about which there might be a question and where he’d be sure to incur the enmity of the old owners. This reason, to judge from Major Welch’s expression, did not make much impression on him. He did not wish to incur anyone’s enmity, he said. But if he bought honestly, and became the lawful owner of a place, he should not mind what others thought. Still shook his head. Major Welch did not know these people, he said. “And to be honest with you, Major, I feel as if having you right here by me was a sort of protection. They daresn’t touch a gentleman who’s been in the Union army, and who’s got big friends. And that’s one reason I’d like to have you right close to me.” His manner had something so sincere in it that it was almost pathetic. So, as he made Major Welch what appeared to be really a very reasonable proposal, not only as to the Stamper place, but also as to several hundred acres of the Red Rock land adjoining, the Major agreed to take it under advisement, and intimated that if the title should prove all right, and Mrs. Welch should like the idea when she arrived he would probably purchase. Within a week or two following Major Welch’s trip to the county seat, and Still’s offer to sell him the Stamper place and a part of Red Rock, Mrs. Welch arrived. Mrs. Welch, in her impatience, could not wait for the day she had set and arrived before she was expected. The telegram she had sent had miscarried, and when she reached the station there was no one present to meet her. A country station is a sad place at best to one who has just left the bustle and life of a city; but to be deposited, bag and baggage, in a strange land and left alone without anyone to meet you, and without knowing a soul, is forlorn to the last degree.