ed true to him. Mrs Keswick,
with sun-bonnet and umbrella, came out upon the porch, and said
cheerily: "I should think a gentleman like you would prefer to be with
the ladies than to be walking about here by yourself. They have gone to
take a walk in the woods. I should have said that Miss March has gone on
ahead, with her little maid Peggy. My niece was going with her, but I
called her back to attend to some housekeeping matters for me, and I
think she will be kept longer than she expected, for I have just sent
Letty to her to be shown how to cut out a frock. But you needn't wait;
you can go right through the flower-garden, and take the path over the
fields into the woods." And, having concluded this bit of conscienceless
and transparent management, the old lady remarked that she, herself, was
going for a walk, and left him.

Lawrence lost no time in following her suggestions. Throwing away his
cigar, he hurried through the house and the little flower-garden, a gate
at the back of which opened into a wide pasture-field. This field sloped
down gently to a branch, or little stream, which ran through the middle
of it, and then the ground ascended until it reached the edge of the
woods. Following the well-defined path, he looked across the little
valley before him, and could see, just inside the edge of the woods--the
trees and bushes being much more thinly attired than in the summer
time--the form of a lady in a light-colored dress with a red scarf upon
her shoulders, sometimes moving slowly, sometimes stopping. This was
Roberta, and those woods were a far better place than the exposed summit
of Pine Top Hill, in which to plight his troth, if it should be so that
he should be able to do it, and there were doubtless paths in those
woods through which they might afterwards wander, if things should turn
out propitiously. At all events, in those woods would he settle this
affair.

His intention was still strong to make a very clean breast of it to
Roberta. If she had blamed him for his prudent reserve, she should have
full opportunity to forgive him. All that he had been she should know,
but far more important than that, he would try to make her know, better
than he had done before, what he was now. Abandoning all his previous
positions, and mounted on these strong resolutions, thus would he dash
into her camp, and hope to capture her.

Reaching the little ravine, at the bottom of which flowed the branch,
now but two or th