trees. The
sky was cloudless and intensely blue, marked only by the slow circling
of a buzzard far above the pine-tops. There were many pines, and the
heat drew out their fragrance, sharp and strong. The moss that thatched
the red banks was burned, and all the ferns were shrivelling up.
Everywhere butterflies fluttered, lizards basked in the sun, and the
stridulation of innumerable insects vexed the ear. The way was long, and
the coach lumbered heavily through the July weather. "I do not want to
talk," sighed Unity. "My heart is too heavy."

"My own is not light," said Cary grimly. "I am sorry for my brother."

"We are all sorry for your brother," Unity answered gently, and then
would speak no more, but sat in her silver and roses, looking out into
the heat and light. The Greenwood road was reached in silence. Cary put
his head out of the window and called to old Philip. The coach came
slowly to a stop before a five-barred gate. Mingo opened the door, and
the young man got out. "Unless you think I might go with you as far as
the church--" he suggested, with his hand on the door. Unity shook her
head. "You can't do that, you know! Besides, I am going first to Cousin
Jane Selden's. Good-bye. Oh, it is going to be a happy marriage--it must
be happy!"

"What is going to make it happy?" demanded Cary gloomily. "It's a match
against nature! When I think of your cousin in that old whitewashed
house, and every night Gideon Rand's ghost making tobacco around it! I
am glad that Ludwell has gone to Richmond. He looks like a ghost
himself."

"Oh, the world!" sighed Unity. "Tell Philip, please, to drive on."

"I'll ride over to Fontenoy to-morrow," said Fairfax Cary. "'Twill do
you good to talk it over."

The coach went heavily on through the dust of the Three-Notched Road.
The locusts shrilled, the pines gave no shade, in the angle of the snake
fences pokeberry and sumach drooped their dusty leaves. The light air in
the pine-tops sounded like the murmur of a distant sea, too far off for
coolness. Unity sighed with the oppression of it all. The flowers were
withering in her lap. After a long hour the road turned, discovering
yellow wheat-fields and shady orchards, the gleam of a shrunken stream
and a brick house embowered in wistaria. Around the horse-block and in
the shade of a great willow were standing a coach or two, a chaise, and
several saddle-horses. "All of them Republican," commented Unity.

At the door she was met