The ox-cart is lumbering directly down upon the phaeton in which I am seated, so I cry out to Eric for rescue. He comes and drives into the river just as the two horsemen ride down between the sloping, shade-arched banks. [Illustration: Ox-Cart.] At this double invasion of the ford, Sylvia and her escort turn their horses to ride out, and in doing so face the last-comers. One of them stops and lifts his hat. “Miss Norwood!” he cries. “What an unexpected pleasure!” Sylvia checks her horse and holds out her hand with a laugh. “Is it possible this is you, Mr. Lanier?” she says. Eric and I glance at each other. We both think of Charley. Of all Sylvia’s suitors— and she has not a few—Ralph Lanier is the most devoted, the most persevering, and the most wealthy. Consequently, he is the one whom all her friends and acquaintances have long since decided to be destined by Providence for her. Mr. Lanier is plainly delighted at the encounter. “To think that I should meet you here!” he says rapturously. “My uncle has a country-seat near Flat Rock, and I have been spending a week or two with him. We only came to Asheville this morning, and I was thinking of leaving the mountains to-morrow.” “Leaving!—so early in the season?” says Sylvia. “What a strange idea!” “I find this country very dull,” says Mr. Lanier, shrugging his shoulders. “I am no great admirer of Nature. I prefer civilization and society. I was thinking of going to the White Sulphur and Saratoga, and hoped very much to meet _you_.” “You would have been disappointed,” she says coolly. “I have become an Arcadian, and abjured all resorts of that kind. We are just beginning an extensive tour through this country which bores you so much.—By-the-by, here are Alice and Eric—and let me present Mr. Dupont.” Hands are shaken and proper speeches made—the Swannanoa, the while, rippling gently round us, the sunbeams slanting, the vines drooping, the setting of the whole scene idyllic enough for a pastoral poem. We learn that Mr. Lanier is accompanying his uncle to pay a visit to a friend who lives near by. “Nonsense!” says Eric. “A man does not come to Arcadia to pay or receive visits. _We_ are going to McDowell’s Hill for the sunset. You had better come with us.” “Probably Mr. Lanier is no admirer of sunsets,” says Sylvia, with a slight touch of scorn in her tone. Mr. Lanier is quick enough to hear this. “On the contrary, I admire them exceedingly,” he says. “If my uncle will excuse me, I will accompany you with pleasure.” The uncle readily excuses him, so he turns his horse and rides by Sylvia’s side up the road down which he came. As Eric and I follow, we exchange a few remarks about the pleasure in store for Charley. “Poor fellow!” I say. “An evil fate seems to war against him. I could not help hoping that on this expedition he might have a fair field for once; yet see!—first Mr. Dupont appeared, and now Ralph Lanier, his most formidable rival.”