"Certainly," said he, signalling the man who held our horses. "We can ride forward; they will soon overtake us, and McGuffy can accompany the carriage as far as the cross-road. He is going to Brandon, I believe, this morning." I stepped back. "After all, it would hardly be polite to go, as he was of the riding party. There they come from the greenhouse. They must be ready now." At last, we were mounted, and our companions arranged for the drive, our last good byes said; but the understanding was, as we parted, that the whole party of Masons and Emersons should adjourn to Rutledge for the evening, where a grand finale, in the shape of a supper and a dance, should wind up the festivities of the season. The pretty Janet whispered, as I went down from the saddle to exchange a parting word with her, "I have not given up the visit yet, Papa promises to take Mrs. Churchill by storm this evening, and you must consent." As we rode along, I gave a sigh to the impossibility of this; nothing could give me pleasure now, but this seemed more like it than anything else. To be quietly with Janet, and to learn to love her, and to unlearn the terrible lesson of the last few weeks, looked almost like peace. But I knew too well what my aunt's answer would be, as she was to be appealed to, and without throwing off the mask of deference that I still preserved and wished to preserve, I could not resist her decision. I well knew the programme sketched out for me, for the rest of the summer: in the thrice empty dreariness of Gramercy Park I was to be immured, while the others whiled away the pleasant weeks at Newport and Nahant. The Wynkars, Capt. McGuffy and Phil had consented to make their plans agree with the Churchills, and Mr. Rutledge had promised to join them in the course of a fortnight. He had made his arrangements to leave home on the same day that we did, and accompany us part of the way; business in the western part of the State would occupy him for some ten days; but, at the end of that time, he proposed rejoining the party at Newport. Nothing had been said to me about my plans, but I knew from something that escaped inadvertently, that the subject had been canvassed, and it had been decided that the income allowed me would not warrant such an expense, and that, with Frances, I was to be dropped at home, while mamma's maid should serve also for Josephine and Grace for the remainder of the summer. I should have loathed the gaiety of Newport, the crowd and the excitement would have been insupportable to me; but the prospect of being smothered in that silent, dark house in the hot city, hateful with memories of my recent illness, and with trials that I could never forget, was even harder to anticipate. But I had to submit. What a future for seventeen.