ach step a little quicker than the one behind it----" So he went
on for a full minute in praise of the New England spring.

Barbara listened with the delight all girls have for flowers of speech
plucked for themselves.

"You know," she responded, as they moved on again, "it doesn't come easy
for us Southerners to think of your country as being beautiful; but we
notice that nearly all the landscapes in our books are made in 'barren
New England,' and we have a pri-vate cu-ri-os-i-ty to know how you all
in-vent them."

"If New England should not charm you, Miss Garnet,"--Fair hurried his
words as they drew near Ravenel and Fannie waiting at the cottage
gate--"my disappointment would last me all my life."

"Why, so it would me," said Barbara, "but I do not expect it. Well,
Fannie, Mr. Fair has at last been decoyed into praising his native land.
Think of----" She hushed.

A strong footstep approached, and John March came out of the gloom of
the trees, saluting buoyantly. Ravenel reached sidewise for his hand and
detained him.

"I took my mother away early," said March. "She can't bear a crowd long.
I was feeling so fatigued, myself, I thought a brisk walk might help me.
You still think you must go to-morrow, Mr. Fair? I go North, myself, in
about a week."

The two girls expressed surprise.

"For the land company?" quickly prompted Fannie.

"Yes, principally. I'll take my mother's poems along and give them to
some good publisher. O no-o, it's not exactly a sudden decision; its
taken me all day to make it. My mother--O--no, she seems almost resigned
to my going, but it's hard to tell about my mother, Miss Garnet; she has
a wonderful control of her feelings."

LII.

DARKNESS AND DOUBT

The paragraph in the _Courier_ which purported to tell the movements of
Mrs. March silently left its readers to guess those of her son. Two men
whose abiding-places lay in different directions away from Suez had no
sooner made their two guesses than they proceeded to act upon them
without knowledge of, or reference to, the other.

About an hour after dark on the night of the golden wedding both these
men were riding, one northward, the other southward, toward each other
on the Widewood road. Widewood house was between them. Both moved with a
wary slowness and looked and listened intently, constantly, and in every
direction.

When one had ridden within a hundred yards or so of the Widewood house
and the other was not muc