“Is it too warm, Miss Dorothy, for you to make a little excursion with me to the stables?”
“Certainly not,” she quickly answered. “I’ll go at once.”
“Thank you,” he said, “and we’ll stop in the orchard on our way back and get some June apples. I remember where the trees are.”
“You want me to show you the horses, I suppose,” she said as the two set off side by side.
“No; any of the negroes could do that. I want you to render me a more skilled service.”
“What is it?”
“I want you, please, to pick out a horse for me to ride while I stay at Wyanoke.”
“While you stay at Wyanoke!” echoed the girl. “Why, that will be for all the time, of course.”
“I hardly think so,” answered the young man, with a touch of not altogether pleased uncertainty in his tone. “You see I have important work to do, which I cannot do anywhere but in a great city – or at any rate,” – as the glamour of the easy, polished and altogether delightful contentment of Virginia life came over him anew, and its attractiveness sang like a siren in his ears, – “at any rate it cannot be so well done anywhere else as in a large city. I have come down here to Virginia only to see what duties I have to do here. If I find I can finish them in a few months or a year, I shall go back to my more important work.”
The girl was silent for a time, as if pondering his words. Finally she said:
“Is there anything more important than to look after your estate? You see I don’t understand things very well.”
“Perhaps it is best that you never shall,” he answered. “And to most men the task of looking after an ancestral estate, and managing a plantation with more than a hundred negroes – ”
“There are a hundred and eighty seven in all, if you count big and little, old and young together,” broke in the girl.
“Are there? How did you come to know the figures so precisely?”
“Why, I keep the plantation book, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” he answered.
“Yes,” she said, “I’ve kept it ever since I came to Wyanoke three or four years ago. You see your uncle didn’t like to bother with details, and so I took this off his hands, when I was so young that I wrote a great big, sprawling hand and spelled my words ever so queerly. But I wanted to help Uncle Robert. You see I liked him. If you’d rather keep the plantation book yourself, I’ll give it up to you when we go back to the house.”
“I would much rather have you keep it, at least until you make up your mind whether you like me or not. Then, if you don’t like me I’ll take the book.”
“Very well,” she replied, treating his reference to her present uncertainty of mind concerning himself quite as she might have treated his reference to a weather contingency of the morrow or of the next week. “I’ll go on with the book till then.”
By this time the pair had reached the stables, and Miss Dorothy, in that low, soft but penetrating voice which Arthur had observed and admired, called to a negro man who was dozing within:
“Ben, your master wants to see the best of the saddle horses. Bring them out, do you hear?”
The question “do you hear?” with which she ended her command was one in universal use in Virginia. If an order were given to a negro without that admonitory tag to it, it would fall idly upon heedless ears. But the moment the negro heard that question he gathered his wits together and obeyed the order.
“What sort of a horse do you like, Doctor?” asked the girl as the animals were led forth. “Can you ride?”
“Why, of course,” he answered. “You know I spent a year in Virginia when I was a boy.”
“Oh, yes, of course – if you haven’t forgotten. Then you don’t mind if a horse is spirited and a trifle hard to manage?”
“No. On the contrary, Miss Dorothy, I should very much mind if my riding horse were not spirited, and as for managing him, I’m going to get you to teach me the art of command, as you practise it so well on your dogs, your horse and the house servants.”
“Very well,” answered the girl seeming not to heed the implied compliment. “Put the horses back in their stalls, Ben, and go over to Pocahontas right away, and tell the overseer there to send Gimlet over to me. Do you hear? You see, Doctor,” she added, turning to him, “your uncle’s gout prevented him from riding much during the last year or so of his life, and so there are no saddle horses here fit for a strong man like you. There’s one fine mare, four years old, but she’s hardly big enough to carry your weight. You must weigh a hundred and sixty pounds, don’t you?”
“Yes, about that. But whose horse is Gimlet?”
“He’s mine, and he’ll suit you I’m sure. He is five years old, nearly seventeen hands high and as strong as a young ox.”
“But are you going to sell him to me?”
“Sell him? No, of course not. He is my pet. He has eaten out of my hand ever since he was a colt, and I was the first person that ever sat on his back. Besides, I wouldn’t sell a horse to you. I’m going to lend him to you till – till I make up my mind. Then, if I like you I’ll give him to you. If I don’t like you I’ll send him back to Pocahontas. Hurry up, Ben. Ride the gray mare and lead Gimlet back, do you hear?”
“You are very kind to me, Miss Dorothy, and I – ”
“Oh, no. I’m only polite and neighborly. You see Wyanoke and Pocahontas are adjoining plantations. There comes Jo with your trunks, so we shall not have time for the June apples to-day – or may be we might stop long enough to get just a few, couldn’t we?”
With that she took the young man’s hand as a little girl of ten might have done, and skipping by his side, led the way into the orchard. The thought of the June apples seemed to have awakened the child side of her nature, completely banishing the womanly dignity for the time being.
V
ARTHUR BRENT’S TEMPTATION
D URING the next three or four days Arthur was too much engaged with affairs and social duties to pursue his scientific study of the young girl – half woman, half child – with anything like the eagerness he would have shown had his leisure been that of the Virginians round about him. He had much to do, to “find out where he stood,” as he put the matter. He had with him for two days Col. Majors the lawyer, who had the estate’s affairs in charge. That comfortable personage assured the young man that the property was “in good shape” but that assurance did not satisfy a man accustomed to inquire into minute details of fact and to rest content only with exact answers to his inquiries.
“I will arrange everything for you,” said the lawyer; “the will gives you everything and it has already been probated. It makes you sole executor with no bonds, as well as sole inheritor of the estate. There is really nothing for you to do but hang up your hat. You take your late uncle’s place, that is all.”
“But there are debts,” suggested Arthur.
“Oh, yes, but they are trifling and the estate is a very rich one. None of your creditors will bother you.”
“But I do not intend to remain in debt,” said the young man impatiently. “Besides, I do not intend to remain a planter all my life. I have other work to do in the world. This inheritance is a burden to me, and I mean to be rid of it as soon as possible.”
“Allow me to suggest,” said the lawyer in his self-possessed way, “that the inheritance of Wyanoke is a sort of burden that most men at your time of life would very cheerfully take upon their shoulders.”
“Very probably,”