"To your young enemy, Lucetta," I smilingly replied.
He had been looking at me in a perfectly modest and respectful manner, but he dropped his eyes at this and busied himself abstractedly, and yet I thought with some intention, in removing a fly from the horse's flank with the tip of his whip.
"I will not acknowledge her as an enemy," he quietly returned in strictly modulated tones. "I like the girl too well."
The fly had been by this time dislodged, but he did not look up.
"And William?" I suggested. "What do you think of William?"
Slowly he straightened himself. Slowly he dropped the whip back into its socket. I thought he was going to answer, when suddenly his whole attitude changed and he turned upon me a beaming face full of nothing but pleasure.
"The road takes a turn here. In another moment you will see my house." And even while he spoke it burst upon us, and I instantly forgot that I had just ventured on a somewhat hazardous question.
It was such a pretty place, and it was so beautifully and exquisitely kept. There was a charm about its rose-encircled porch that is only to be found in very old places that have been appreciatively cared for. A high fence painted white inclosed a lawn like velvet, and the house itself, shining with a fresh coat of yellow paint, bore signs of comfort in its white-curtained windows not usually to be found in the solitary dwelling of a bachelor. I found my eyes roving over each detail with delight, and almost blushed, or, rather, had I been twenty years younger might have been thought to blush, as I met his eyes and saw how much my pleasure gratified him.
"You must excuse me if I express too much admiration for what I see before me," I said, with what I have every reason to believe was a highly successful effort to hide my confusion. "I have always had a great leaning towards well-ordered walks and trimly kept flower-beds—a leaning, alas! which I have found myself unable to gratify."
"Do not apologize," he hastened to say. "You but redouble my own pleasure in thus honoring my poor efforts with your regard. I have spared no pains, madam, I have spared no pains to render this place beautiful, and most of what you see, I am proud to say, has been accomplished by my own hands."