The customer came out, and with her came young Mr. Johnson, who stowed away her parcels, helped her into the wagon, and handed her the reins before he turned to the pretty girl with a tinge of color still dyeing his brown cheek.
"Is—your uncle in?" asked Miss Stretton sweetly.
He was very sorry, but his uncle had gone to Port Royal that morning to see a sick sister. Could he do anything for her?
"Well," she said, hesitating, "I suppose you might do just as well, only—I had expected to talk with your uncle."
Young Johnson looked puzzled but admiring. It was the admiration in his splendid dark eyes that embarrassed her. To the city girls who came up to the mountain every one of these little country stores, and every farm which boasted a son or two of some old, impoverished family, furnished an escort to dances and picnics, and the beau of a summer. Miss Stretton was not exempt from girlish weaknesses, and as the handsome countryman stood there waiting for her probable order for ribbons or candy or stationery, she wished that she could settle her little matter of business with some one else.
But she took it like a douche at last, all at once. "Jerry told me that your uncle has a nice riding-horse, and I want one for a month or so. Would he hire it? Could I arrange the matter with you?"
"Well, the horse is mine, in fact. Uncle made a present of it to me," explained Albert, kicking a little stone in the road.
"Oh!" said the young lady. The affair was now a nuisance to both of them. For her part, she felt that, if she proceeded, there must ensue some pecuniary loss in the transaction; she must be large and uncalculating. On the other hand, Albert shrank from the mention of dollars and cents, although if the matter had been conducted through a third party, he would not have hesitated to make something out of the Yankee girl. Being a Virginian, he could not now put a cool, business face upon it. It occurred to him that he would like to drive her down to the hop at Berryville to-morrow night. How would it look to make bargains before tendering an invitation!
He looked up and down the road; the soft breeze from over the hills just rustled the leaves, the low grunt of a porker reached their ears from around the house, a dog barked somewhere, but no figure disturbed the scene; nobody was coming, they must talk it out.
"Well?" she interrogated impatiently. She looked very graceful and saucy. He glanced upward and caught her fleeting smile.