, her eyes
wandered sadly and thoughtfully toward the distant autumn horizon, and
the tender lips wore that expression of soft languor which is so sad a
spectacle in the young.

At Mr. Ralph Ashley's bow, she raised her head quickly; and her
startled look showed plainly she had not been conscious of the
presence of Fanny, or the young man on the portico.

Redbud returned the profound bow of Fanny's cavalier with a delightful
little curtsey, and would have retired into the house again. But this
Miss Fanny, for reasons best known to herself, was determined to
prevent--reasons which a close observer might have possibly guessed,
after looking at her blushing cheeks and timid, uneasy eyes. For
everybody knows that if there is anything more distasteful and
embarrassing to very young ladies than a failure on the part of
gallants to recognise their claims to attention, that other more
embarrassing circumstance is a too large _quantum_ of the pleasing
incense. It is not the present writer, however, who will go so far
as to say that their usual habit of running _away_ from the admirer
should be taken, as in other feminine manoeuvres, by contraries.

So Fanny duly introduced Mr. Ralph Ashley to Miss Redbud Summers; and
then, with a little masonic movement of the head, added, with perfect
ease:

"Suppose we all take a walk in the garden--it is a very pretty
evening."

This proposition was enthusiastically seconded by Mr. Ralph Ashley,
who had regained his laughing ease again--and though Redbud would fain
have been excused, she was obliged to yield, and so in ten minutes
they were promenading up and down the old garden, engaged in pleasant
conversation--which conversation has, however, nothing to do with this
veracious history.

Just as they arrived, in one of their perambulatory excursions around
the walks, at a small gate which opened on the hill-side, they
discovered approaching them a worthy of the pedlar description, who
carried on his broad German shoulders a large pack, which, as the
pedlar jogged along, made, pretences continually of an intention to
dive forward over his head, but always without carrying this intention
into execution. The traveling merchant seemed to be at the moment a
victim to that species of low spirits which attacks all his class when
trade is dull; and no sooner had he descried the youthful group, than
his face lighted up with anticipated business.

He came to the gate at which they stood, and