Unity's the prettiest," said Vinie. "It's time I was
walking back to Charlottesville." She rose and stood for a moment in the
dusty road below the blackberry bushes, looking toward Fontenoy. "I
don't suppose he asked after Tom and me, Mr. Adam?"

"Why, surely!" protested Adam, with cheerful mendacity. "He asked after
you both particularly. He said he certainly would like a cup of water
from your well."

"Did he?" asked Vinie, and grew pink. "That water's mighty cold."

"I'd like a cup of it myself," said Adam. "Since we are both walking to
town, we might as well walk together. Don't you want me to break some
cherry blossoms for your parlour?"

"Yeth, if you please," replied Vinie, and the two went up the sunny road
to Charlottesville.

Back at Fontenoy, in the blue room, Rand, resting in the easy chair
beside the window, left the consideration of Adam and Adam's talk, and
gave his mind to the approaching hour in the Fontenoy drawing-room. He
both desired and dreaded that encounter. Would Miss Churchill be there?
Aided by the homely friendliness of her cousin's house on the
Three-Notched Road, he had met her and conversed with her without being
greatly conscious of any circumstance other than that she was altogether
beautiful, and that he loved her. But this was not Mrs. Selden's, this
was Fontenoy. He had stood here hat in hand, within Miss Churchill's
memory--certainly within the memory of the men of her family. Well! He
was, thank God! an American citizen. The hat was now out of his hand and
upon his head. The conditions of his boyhood might, he thought, be
forgotten in the conditions of his manhood. But--they would all be
gathered in the drawing-room. Should he speak first to Colonel Churchill
as his host, or first to the ladies of the house, to Miss Churchill and
Miss Dandridge? If Miss Churchill or Miss Dandridge were at the
harpsichord, should he wait at the door until the piece was ended? He
had a vision of a great space of polished floor reflecting candlelight,
and of himself crossing that trackless desert beneath the eyes of
goddesses and men. The colour came into his face. There were twenty
things he might have asked Mr. Pincornet that night at Monticello. He
turned with hot impatience from the consideration of the usages of
society, and fell to building with large and strong timbers the edifice
of his future. He built on while the dusk gathered, and he built while
Joab helped him to dress, and he was yet