"I don't think he ought to have done it just that way, old faithful. But if I read the signs correctly you'd better get used to it now. There'll be plenty more times." Bob called from the gate: "Send Zack over; I want my hair cut!" And the Colonel, understanding, waved his hand as they again cantered away--Dale in advance, and the young planter evidently cautioning him to spare his horse in the noon hour heat. "Who's Bob's anthropoid friend?" Brent asked, as he and the Colonel now stretched in their chairs. "A young man from the mountains, violently in search of an education. He will be asking you every question in the range of thought, Brent, and I hope you will have patience with him. It's such a pity to see one so hungry for knowledge--really starving for it--while the whole wide board before him holds more than enough for all!" "He's welcome to banquet on my feast of reason, but he'll get mighty tired of it. Do you think he's serious?" The Colonel smiled at this from Brent. "It has been my observation that believing in people usually brings out their best," he answered, "and so I think he is serious. I hope you will, also." "You bet I will," Brent cordially agreed, burying his nose in the mint. "He's all right;--I like him!" After a moment of affectionate contemplation of his own julep, the Colonel said: "Bob's household will be over to dinner tonight. I trust you can be with us, sir!" Before he could reply, Miss Liz appeared in the doorway, and both men arose with courtly bows. When Brent had arranged a place for her--and the Colonel had slipped into the house holding the telltale goblet under his coat--this severe lady, balancing on the chair with prim nicety, raised her lorgnette and observed: "You have come home early!" It was not hospitably done. Indeed, Miss Liz, sister of the Colonel's angelic wife, inherited few of that departed lady's endearments. While both had passed their girlhood in the Shenandoah, this one alone managed to absorb and retain all the stern qualities from the surroundings of her nativity. Now a spinster of perhaps sixty years, this firmness had become imbedded in her nature as unalterably as the Blue Ridge rock; her eyes and hair were as gray, and her voice--unless she were deeply moved--as hard; also was her sense of duty as unyielding. Before her sister's death she regularly visited Arden, and afterwards the Colonel had insisted upon her making it a permanent home.