Rage and laughter struggled together in Letty’s breast, but laughter triumphed. She lay back in her chair, and peal after peal of laughter poured forth. Ethel Maywood thought Letty was losing her mind, until at last she managed to gasp, between explosions of merriment, that things were a little different in this country, and that neither she nor Mr. Farebrother had incurred the slightest obligation toward each other by their conduct.
It was now the English girl’s turn to be surprised, and surprised she was. In the midst of it Mr. Romaine came in upon one of his rare visits. He demanded to know the meaning of Letty’s merriment, and Letty, quite unable to keep so diverting a cat in the bag, could not forbear letting it out. Mr. Romaine enjoyed it in his furtive, silent manner.
It found its way to Farebrother’s ears, who was as much amused as anybody, and when he and Letty met a few hours afterward, each of them, on catching the other’s eye, laughed unaccountably.
The Romaine party was to follow later in the season, considerable preparations being necessary for the house at Shrewsbury to be inhabitable after forty years of solitude. Farebrother and Sir Archy had both accepted the Colonel’s pressing invitations to pay a visit to Corbin Hall in time for the shooting, and so the parting with Letty was not for long. He and Sir Archy went with them to the station, and Letty found her chair surrounded by piles of flowers, books, and everything that custom permits a man to give to a girl. There was also a very handsome bouquet with Mr. Romaine’s card. Letty penned a card of thanks which Farebrother delivered to Mr. Romaine before Miss Maywood. Mr. Romaine, with elaborate gallantry, placed it in his breast pocket, to Miss Maywood’s evident discomfiture.
Meanwhile the Corbins were speeding homeward on the Southern train. Letty had enjoyed immensely her first view of the great, big, outside world.
VI
NOVEMBER came, that sunny autumn month in lower Virginia, when the changing woods glow in the mellow light, and a rich, blue haze envelops the rolling uplands; when the earth lies calm and soft, wrapped in the golden brightness of the day, or the cloudless splendor of the moonlit night. The chirp of the partridge was heard abroad in the land, and that was the sign for Farebrother’s arrival. An excursion down to Virginia after partridges concealed a purpose on his part toward higher game and a more exciting pursuit.
One day, though, two or three weeks before Farebrother’s arrival, the Colonel received a marked copy of a newspaper. It contained the notice of the collapse of a bank in New York, in which the Farebrother family were large stockholders.
Then came a letter from Farebrother telling the whole story. By far the bulk of their fortune was gone, but there was still enough left for his mother and sisters to live comfortably.