“Don’t speak, Jeff, don’t say anything. It’s such a lovely day--the hills are so beautiful--let’s have a ride together!” He agreed, glad of anything that would insure her presence near him, and they were soon galloping over country roads and across the wooded hills, brilliant in the gala robes with which Nature celebrates her thanksgiving for another year of sun and life and growth. As they rode, the motion and the wine-like air and the joy in her heart lifted Rhoda into exultant mood, deepened the wild rose-bloom in her cheeks and kindled her serious eyes into sparkling gaiety. “Let me have this little time!” her heart pleaded. “It may be the last. After _that_ has happened he may never come again!” And so, with thrilling nerves and singing heart, the Cavalier in her breast dominated the Puritan and sent to the four winds warnings of conscience and thought of to-morrow. Forgotten was the safety of the three fugitive slaves, at that moment hiding in her cellar, forgotten the fateful Thing for whose birth in the Virginia mountains she had been waiting, cast away from her mind was all thought of the anti-slavery contest, nor was there room in her heart for zeal in its cause. She was mere woman, loving and beloved, and glorying inwardly in her power over her lover. Her Cavalier inheritance took possession of her and bade her snatch the pleasure of the hour. Her father’s offspring dwindled away into the smallest recesses of her nature and it was her mother’s daughter who sat in the saddle, slender and graceful, and with starry eye and alluring smile kindled fresh fires in her lover’s breast. With pride and pleasure she saw them burning in his face and eyes as he drew beside her and murmured, “Rhoda, you are so beautiful!” Her mirror had told her many times, and she had agreed in its verdict, that she was not beautiful. And so all the more precious to her was this tribute of love, and more than once did she win it, as they rode and rode, during the long afternoon. A sudden memory came of the tale of courtship her mother had told to her and Jeff, on that June night so long ago, and across her mind’s eye there flitted the vision she had often called up, of the pretty, wilful girl and the resolute young man with his hand on her bridle, galloping, galloping-- “And that was love--and this is love, and it is mine!” her heart sang. Quickly her brain flashed back the question, “Would I yield, as mother did, if--if--if--” And the Cavalier in her heart sang back, exulting, “I would! I would!”