ich yearly dropped its
half-candied fruit upon the first light snow of the winter. It is true
that persimmons, quite fit to eat, were to be found on this tree at an
earlier period than this, but such fruit was never noticed by the people
in those parts, who would not rudely wrench from Jack Frost his one
little claim to rivalry with the sun as a fruit-ripener. To the right of
the field was a wide extent of pasture land, running down to a small
stream, or "branch," which, flowing between two other streams of the
same kind a mile or two on either side of it, had given its name to the
place. In front, to the left, lay a great forest of chestnut, oak,
sassafras, and sweet gum, with here and there a clump of tall pines,
standing up straight and stiff with an air of Puritanic condemnation of
the changing fashions of the foliage about them.

On one side of the platform of the broad stile, which has been
mentioned, sat one summer afternoon, the lady of the house. She was a
young woman, and although her face was a good deal shadowed by her
far-spreading hat, it was easy to perceive that she was a handsome one.
She was the niece of Mr Robert Brandon, the elderly bachelor who owned
Midbranch; and her mother, long since dead, had called her Roberta,
which was as near as she could come to the name of her only brother.

Miss Roberta's father was a man whose mind and time were entirely given
up to railroads; and although he nominally lived in New York, he was,
for the greater part of the year, engaged in endeavors to forward his
interests somewhere west of the Mississippi. Two or three months of the
winter were generally spent in his city home. At these times he had his
daughter with him, but the rest of the year she lived with her uncle,
whose household she directed with much good will and judgment. The old
gentleman did not keep her all the summer at Midbranch. He knew what was
necessary for a young lady who had been educated in Germany and
Switzerland, and who had afterwards made a very favorable impression in
Paris and London; and so, during the hot weather, he took her with him
to one of the fashionable Southern resorts, where they always stayed
exactly six weeks.

The gentleman who was sitting on the other side of the platform, with
his face turned towards her, had known Miss Roberta for a year or more,
having met her at the North, and also in the Virginia mountains; and
being now on a visit to the Green Sulphur Springs, about