Leslie took a turn or two about the room, looked out at the window, remarked that it was a hot afternoon, said that the hay crop had been the heaviest ever known, in consequence, he opined, of the joint effects of heat, moisture, and guano; and was descanting on the ravages committed by the borers on a certain peach tree, when Miss Weston and her sister appeared. "It's all up with me. She does not care for me a straw," thought Morton, as he saw the easy cordiality with which Miss Leslie received her guests. He was introduced. Miss Weston complimented him on the affair of the railroad. His reply was cold and constrained. Leslie soon left the room. Morton felt himself _de trop_, yet could not muster strength of mind to go. Conversation flagged. Every body became constrained. Miss Weston suspected the truth, and glanced at her sister that they should take their leave, when, at this juncture, a servant came to announce tea. The ebbs and flows of the human mind are beyond the reach of astronomy. As they went into the next room, Morton became conscious of a faint and indefinite something in the face of his mistress, which, he could not tell why, cast a gleam of light into his darkness, and lifted him out of the slough of despond in which he had been floundering for the last half hour. A flush of hope dawned on him. His constraint passed away, and Miss Weston's opinion of him was wonderfully revolutionized. At length, much to his delight, one of the visitors remarked to the other, that they had better go home before it grew too dark. But here a new alarm seized him. Might he not be expected to offer them his escort? Terrified at this idea, and oblivious of all gallantry, he made his escape into the garden, impelled--so he left them to infer--by a delicate wish to free them from the restraint of his presence. Here he walked to and fro behind the hedge, in no small agitation, but with all his faculties on the alert. In a quarter of an hour, he heard voices at the hall door; and approaching behind a cluster of high laurels, saw Edith Leslie accompanying her two friends down the avenue. After walking with them a few rods, she bade them good evening, and turned back towards the house. Morton went forward to meet her. "There is a beautiful sunset over the water, beyond the garden. Will you walk that way?" They turned down one of the garden paths. "What did you think of me this afternoon?" asked Morton--"did you think me ill, or bewitched, or turned idiot?" "Neither. I thought you a little taciturn, at first."