The Late Mrs. Null | Page 2

in Paris and London; and so, during the hot weather, he took her with him to one of the fashionable Southern resorts, where they always stayed exactly six weeks.
The gentleman who was sitting on the other side of the platform, with his face turned towards her, had known Miss Roberta for a year or more, having met her at the North, and also in the Virginia mountains; and being now on a visit to the Green Sulphur Springs, about four miles from Midbranch, he rode over to see her nearly every day. There was nothing surprising in this, because the Green Sulphur, once a much frequented resort, had seen great changes, and now, although the end of the regular season had not arrived, it had Mr Lawrence Croft for its only guest. There was a spacious hotel there; there was a village of cottages of varying sizes; there were buildings for servants and managers; there was a ten-pin alley and a quiet ground; there were arbors and swings; and a square hole in a stone slab, through which a little pool of greenish water could be seen, with a tin cup, somewhat rusty, lying by it. But all was quiet and deserted, except one cottage, in which the man lived who had charge of the place, and where Mr Croft boarded. It was very pleasant for him to ride over to Midbranch and take a walk with Miss Roberta; and this was what they had been doing to-day.
Horseback rides had been suggested, but Mr Brandon objected to these. He knew Mr Croft to be a young man of good family and very comfortable fortune, and he liked him very much when he had him there to dinner, but he did not wish his niece to go galloping around the country with him. To quiet walks in the woods, and through the meadows, he could, of course, have no objection. A good many of Mr Brandon's principles, like certain of his books, were kept upon a top shelf, but Miss Roberta always liked to humor the few which the old gentleman was wont to have within easy reach.
This afternoon they had rambled through the woods, where the hard, smooth road wound picturesquely through the places in which it had been easiest to make a road, and where the great trunks of the trees were partly covered by clinging vines, which Miss Roberta knew to be either Virginia creeper or poison oak, although she did not remember which of these had clusters of five leaves, and which of three.
The horse on which Mr Croft had ridden over from the Springs was tied to a fence near by, and he now seemed to indicate by his restless movements that it was quite time for the gentleman to go home; but with this opinion Mr Croft decidedly differed. He had had a long walk with the lady and plenty of opportunities to say anything that he might choose, but still there was something very important which had not been said, and which Mr Croft very much wished to say before he left Miss Roberta that afternoon. His only reason for hesitation was the fact that he did not know what he wished to say.
He was a man who always kept a lookout on the bows of his daily action; in storm or in calm, in fog or in bright sunshine that lookout must be at his post; and upon his reports it depended whether Mr Croft set more sail, put on more steam, reversed his engine, or anchored his vessel. A report from this lookout was what he hoped to elicit by the remark which he wished to make. He desired greatly to know whether Miss Roberta March looked upon him in the light of a lover, or in that of an intimate acquaintance, whose present intimacy depended a good deal upon the propinquity of Midbranch and the Green Sulphur Springs. He had endeavored to produce upon her mind the latter impression. If he ever wished her to regard him as a lover he could do this in the easiest and most straightforward way, but the other procedure was much more difficult, and he was not certain that he had succeeded in it. How to find out in what light she viewed him without allowing the lady to perceive his purpose was a very delicate operation.
"I wish," said Miss Roberta, poking with the end of her parasol at some half-withered wild flowers which lay on the steps beneath her, "that you would change your mind, and take supper with us."
Mr Croft's mind was very busy in endeavoring to think of some casual remark, some observation regarding man, nature, or society, or even an anecdote or historical incident, which, if brought into the conversation, might