"Yes," replied the mother, "after all is said and thought, I should rather give you to Arthur than to any other man I know. Leonard will have a shining career, but it will be in politics."
"I tried to dissuade him," broke in the daughter, "till I was ashamed."
"In politics," continued Mrs. Morris,—"and Northern politics, Isabel. Arthur's will be in the church!"
"Yes," said the other, but her whole attention was within the fence at their side, where a rough stile, made in boyhood days by the two brothers and Leonard, led over into the garden. She sprang up. "Let's go, mother; he's coming!"
"Who, my child?"
"Both! Come, dear, come quickly! Oh, I don't know why we ever came out at all!"
"My dear, it was you proposed it, lest some one should come in!"
The daughter had moved some steps down the road, but now turned again; for Ruth and Godfrey, returning, came out through the garden's high gateway. However, they were giving all their smiles to the greetings which the General sent them from his piazza.
"Come over, mother!" called Isabel, in a stifled voice. "Cross to the hill path!" But before they could reach it Arthur and Leonard came into full view on the stile. Isabel motioned her mother despairingly toward them, wheeled once more, and with a gay call for Ruth's notice hurried to meet her in the middle of the way.