How long a stop he would make at Midbranch
would be determined by circumstances. He was sorry that he would not be
able to look upon Miss Roberta with the advantage of knowing her former
lover, but it was something to know that she had had a lover. With this
fact in his mind he would be able to form a better estimate of her than
he had formed before.

The man who lived in the cottage at the Green Sulphur Springs was
somewhat surprised when Mr Croft arrived there, and desired to make
arrangements, as before, for board, and the use of a saddle horse. But,
although it was not generally conceded, this man knew very well that
there was no water in the world so suitable to remedy the wear and tear
of a city life as that of the Green Sulphur Springs, and therefore
nobody could consider the young gentleman foolish for coming back again
while the season permitted.

Lawrence arrived at his cottage in the morning; and early in the
afternoon of the same day he rode over to Midbranch. He found the
country a good deal changed, and he did not like the changes. His road,
which ran for much of its distance through the woods, was covered with
leaves, some green, and some red and yellow, and he did not fancy the
peculiar smell of these leaves, which reminded him, in some way, of that
gathering together of the characters in old-fashioned comedies shortly
before the fall of the curtain. In many places where there used to be a
thick shade, the foliage was now quite thin, and through it he could see
a good deal of the sky. The Virginia creepers, or "poison oaks,"
whichever they were, were growing red upon the trunks of the trees as if
they had been at table too long and showed it, and when he rode out of
the woods he saw that the fields, which he remembered as wide, swelling
slopes of green, with cattle and colts feeding here and there, were now
being ploughed into corrugated stretches of monotonous drab and brown.
If he had been there through all the gradual changes of the season, he,
probably, would have enjoyed them as much as people ordinarily do; but
coming back in this way, the altered landscape slightly shocked him.

When he had turned into the Midbranch gate, but was still a considerable
distance from the house, he involuntarily stopped his horse. He could
see the broad steps which crossed the fence of the lawn, and on one side
of the platform on the top sat a lady whom he instantly recognized as
Miss Roberta; and on the other side