CHAPTER II. A little later in the morning Sally tied on her sunbonnet, whose pale blue lining made a charming framing for her fresh complexion and pretty face, concealing it just sufficiently to make one keenly inquisitive to take a second longer glance beneath the ruffled rim. With the basket of eggs swung coquettishly on her plump arm, and a stray wisp or two of wavy hair escaping from its confines down her shapely, curving neck and throat, in protest at imprisonment, the girl set out walking toward the town, a mile away. Mrs. Brown had ingeniously delayed her daughter's going by finding several little duties for her to perform, hoping the while that before the girl should be ready to start the Squire would make his appearance and leave her no alternative but to accept a ride with him. The morning grew apace, however, and finally Sally set out alone, quite grateful for the Squire's tardiness, and partly amused, partly vexed, by her mother's thinly-veiled excuses for delay. As the girl walked along the road with the springing, elastic step of youth and perfect health, and the freedom of the far-stretching fields as a heritage, the fresh morning air caressing her cheeks brought forth a bloom as soft and delicate as the rose of a summer dawn, while her spirits, which had become somewhat dampened under her mother's recent bickerings, gradually grew soothed and calmed under the tranquil charm of the new-born day. Now and then a bird, startled at her approach, flew from hedge to hedge across the road, piping loudly in affected alarm as it went, while in a softer strain came the gentle lowing of cattle from a pasture near at hand, and in the tall grass and dusty weeds along the way the autumnal chorus of insects had begun, conducted by the shrill-toned cricket. At the top of the first hill that arose between the gate and town Sally paused a moment--not that she was tired, or even spent of breath--and looked back. The picture that she saw was one of serene beauty, with wide stretches of fallow fields, bathed in the golden tranquility of a perfect October day, and dumb with the spell of restfulness and mystic brooding that this season brings. In the far distance a long, ragged line of hills melted into the soft blue sky-line, and over these shadowy sentinels, standing a-row, the purplish haze of autumn hung like a diaphanous curtain stretching between the lowlands and the hill country. From her elevated vantage ground the girl could see the toll-house very distinctly, though she herself was partly hidden by a small clump of young locusts under which she had paused. As she looked toward her home the Squire's old buggy came in sight around a curve of the road and stopped at the gate. Her mother came out and presently pointed in the direction of town, while the Squire gave his horse a cut of the whip and started up the road at a much brisker pace, it seemed to Sally, than before the gate was reached.