urpose. In her dark habit and mannish hat, with sparkling cheeks and
laughing eyes, she was as pretty an apparition as ever enhanced a May
morning. She waved her crop gaily and rode toward us across the lawn.

"Howdy!" she called, in a droll imitation of the mountain dialect.
"Ain't you-uns guine to ask me to 'light a while, an' set a bit, an'
talk a spell?"

Radnor's face had flushed quickly as he perceived who the rider was, but
he held himself stiffly in the background while the Colonel and I did
the honors. It was the first time, I know, that Polly and Rad had met
since the night she refused to dance with him; and her appearance could
only be interpreted as a desire to make amends.

She sprang lightly to the ground, turned Tiger Lilly loose to graze
about the lawn, and airily perched herself on the arm of a chair. There
was nothing in her manner, at least, to suggest that her relations with
any one of us were strained. After a few moments of neighborly gossip
with the Colonel and me--Rad was monosyllabic and remote--she arrived
at her errand. Some friends from Savannah were stopping at the Hall on
their way to the Virginia hot springs, and, as is usual, when strangers
visit the valley, they were planning an expedition to Luray Cave. The
cave was on the other side of the mountains about ten miles from
Four-Pools. Since I had not yet visited it (that was at least the reason
she gave) she had come to ask the three of us to join the party on the
following day.

Rad was sulky at first, and rather curtly declined on the ground that he
had to attend to some business. But Polly scouted his excuse, and added
significantly that Jim Mattison had not been asked. He accepted this
mark of repentance with a pleased flush, and before she rode away, he
had become his former cheerful self again. The Colonel also demurred on
the ground that he was getting too old for such diversions, but Polly
laid her hands upon his shoulders and coaxed him into acquiescence--even
a mummy must have unbent before such persuasion. As a matter of fact
though, the Colonel was only too pleased with his invitation. It
flattered him to be included with the young people, and he was
immensely fond of Polly.

It struck me suddenly as I watched her, how like she was to that other
girl, of eighteen years before. There danced in Polly's eyes the same
eager joy of life that vitalized the face of the portrait over the
mantelpiece upstairs. The resemblance for