Sylvia watches him with a smile. Then she retires to an inner room, and, taking off her wet garments, puts on some coarse but clean ones of her hostess, whose heart is quite won by her bright face and sweet manners. Scarcely has this been accomplished and the dripping clothes hung before the fire to dry, when a roll of approaching wheels is heard, and she rushes to the window in time to see the phaeton and wagon drive past, laden with their merry crowd. Next come two gentlemen on horseback, and then Miss Hollis and Mr. Lanier appear—the former making an heroic effort to smile as she is bumped to and fro in her seat by a horse that _will_ trot despite her frantic tugs at his rein; the latter wearing an air of the most unmistakable sulkiness. It is sad to relate that Miss Norwood laughs over this spectacle until tears stand in her merry eyes, and she has by no means recovered her gravity when, several minutes later, Mr. Kenyon—very damp about the lower extremities, but _insouciant_ as ever—appears. “O Charley! did you see them?” she cries. “Is your conscience torn by remorse? Don’t you know that at this moment Miss Hollis could drown _me_, and Mr. Lanier could drown _you_, with the greatest pleasure?” “We came very near gratifying them both,” says Charley. “Yes, I looked round a corner of the stable and saw the cavalcade. Lanier seemed uncommonly cheerful. I am afraid that, between her horse and her escort, Miss Hollis is hardly enjoying her excursion.” “You can make amends for all by riding home with her—only, if she was of my mind, she would not let you do so.” “She will not be of your mind,” says Charley, with an air of resignation. The duty of riding home with Miss Hollis is in the future, however, so he does not suffer it to weigh on his spirits. There can be no doubt that these two scapegraces enjoy the hour which they are forced to spend in this manner. There is a freedom from restraint, a flavor of adventure in it which pleases the taste of both. “I vote that we go somewhere and spend the day by ourselves,” says Charley. “Those people down at Paint Rock are all more or less bores.” “How kind of you to say so! I shall tell Alice and Eric.” “Of course I didn’t mean Alice and Eric. But some of the rest—that puppy Lanier, for instance.—See here, Sylvia, _do_ you intend to marry him?” He breaks off abruptly in this way—they are sitting on the piazza alone together—and looks at her with an appealing glance in the blue eyes she knows so well. A tide of crimson comes to her face. “What do you mean by asking me such a question, Charley?” she demands indignantly. “Do you think it likely that I ‘intend’ to marry a man who has not asked me to do so?” Charley utters a low whistle, expressive of intense incredulity.