Lydia had not gone to the prayer meeting. She was sitting on the
piazza, quite alone. She arose when her determined visitor boldly
walked up the steps.
"Oh, it is you!" said she.
An unreasonable feeling of elation arose in the young man's breast.
"Did you think I wasn't coming?" he inquired, with all the egotism of
which he had been justly accused.
He did not wait for her reply; but proceeded with considerable humor
to describe his previous unsuccessful attempts to see her.
"I suppose," he added, "Mrs. Solomon Black has kindly warned you
against me?"
She could not deny it; so smiled instead.
"Well," said the young man, "I give you my word I'm not a villain: I
neither drink, steal, nor gamble. But I'm not a saint, after the
prescribed Brookville pattern."
He appeared rather proud of the fact, she thought. Aloud she said,
with pardonable curiosity:
"What is the Brookville pattern? I ought to know, since I am to live
here."
At this he dropped his bantering tone.
"I wanted to talk to you about that," he said gravely.
"You mean--?"
"About your buying the old Bolton place and paying such a
preposterous price for it, and all the rest, including the minister's
back-pay."
She remained silent, playing with the ribbon of her sash.
"I have a sort of inward conviction that you're not doing it because
you think Brookville is such a pleasant place to live in," he went
on, keenly observant of the sudden color fluttering in her cheeks,
revealed by the light of Mrs.
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