"But that he is the richest man in New York, quiet, inexpensive in his ways." "If we were sure of all that! But I don't think her father would like it. I had a dream last night of Red Riding-Hood and the Wolf, and I haven't thought all day of anybody but Laura. We can get off early to-morrow. I have sent Laura to pack her things now." "I'm afraid it is too late for her, poor girl!" said Mr. Ashton. "She would be miserable, and her father would blame me, and I don't like it," said Mrs. Ashton. "And I am tired of New York." "There's your dentist," suggested Mr. Ashton. "I can come again," answered his wife. Arnold's determination was made. He would visit every town in New England; he would cross every square mile of her territory. Of course he would find Laura. Since he should not stop till he found her, of course he would find her before he stopped. He began his quest. He gave concerts in all the larger places; he looked anxiously through the large audiences that attended them,--hopelessly,--for how could he expect to find Laura among them? Often he left the railroads, to walk through the villages. It was the summer time, and he enjoyed the zest of climbing hills and wandering through quiet valleys. He met with pleasant greetings in farm-houses, so far from the world that a stranger was greeted as a friend, where hospitality had not been so long worn upon but that it could offer a fresh cordiality to an unknown face. He wished he were a painter, that he might paint the pretty domestic scenes he saw: the cattle coming home at evening,--the children crowding round the school-mistress, as they walked away with her from the school-door,--the groups of girls sitting at sunset on the door-steps under the elms,--the broad meadows,--the rushing mountain-streams. But again, after the fresh delight of one of these country-walks, he would reproach himself that he had left the more beaten ways and the crowded cars, where he might have met Laura. In passing in one of these from one of the larger towns to another, he met Caroline, on her bridal tour as Mrs. Gresham. "You are not gone to Kansas yet?" she asked. "Then you will be able to come and visit us in Newport this summer. I assure you, you will find cottage-life there far more romantic than log-cabin life."