d tell your mother that I talked to you
seriously concerning the foolishness of your contemplated marriage. Will
you do that much for your old playmate?"

She made a face at him and trippingly hastened away. He looked after
her, shook his head, gathered up his bridle reins, and jogged off toward
his home.

CHAPTER V.

At home Louise made known her arrival by singing along the hallway that
led to her room. She knew that not a very pleasant reception awaited
her, and she was resolved to meet it with the appearance of careless
gayety. She entered her room, drew back the curtains to admit the light,
deftly touched her hair at the mirror, and sat down in a rocking chair.
She took up a book, an American fad built upon a London failure, and was
aimlessly turning the leaves when she heard her mother's voice.

"Are you in there, Louise?"

"Yes, come."

In the mother's appearance there was no suggestion of a stored rebuke;
her gray hair, faultlessly parted, was smoothed upon her brow, her
countenance bespoke calmness, and her sad eyes were full of tender love.

"Oh, you look so cool and sweet," said the girl. "Have this chair."

"No, thank you, I prefer to sit here."

She sat upon a straight-back chair. In her "day" only grandmothers were
supposed to sit in rockers; younger women were thought to preserve
their health and their grace of form by sitting with rigid dignity upon
chairs which might now be exhibited as relics of household barbarism.

"Did you have a pleasant visit?" the girl asked.

"Yes, very; but it was so warm over there under the hills that I was
glad when the time came to leave."

"Does that Englishman still live alone on the Jasper place?"

"Yes, with his straight pipe and Scotch whisky. Perdue says that he
appears to be perfectly contented there all alone."

"Have they found out anything about him?"

"No, only what he has been pleased to tell, and that isn't much. It
seems that he is the younger son of a good family strayed off from home
to better his condition."

"But why should he try to raise cotton when they say there is so little
money in it, and especially when it requires experience? And the climate
must be trying on him?"

"No, he says that the climate agrees with him. He has lived in India. He
is reading American history and is much taken with the part the South
has borne, so I learned from Mr. Perdue. He did not expect to find so
little prejudice against foreigners. I could