“Cecil admired her, I am sure, although he left so soon! I hope from my heart that it will be a match. It would please me better than anything else in the world! How fortunate that he returned just now when he was least expected. It must have been fate!”
Unconscious of Mrs. Barry’s designs against her single blessedness, Molly jogged along soberly toward Lewisburg, having been scolded into sedateness by lazy old Uncle Abe.
There must have been a fate in it as the old lady said, for just as their horses came opposite the park gates at Maple Shade, Cecil Laurens rode out on a magnificent black horse, bowed and smiled, and cantered to Molly’s side.
“Good morning, Miss Barry, good morning, Uncle Abe. A bright day,” he said.
Molly bowed with a half defiant air. What evil sprite had sent this man again across her path?
Yet she gazed as if fascinated in unwilling admiration at his handsome face which in the clear open light of day showed at its best. What dark, tender depths there were to his violet eyes, how regularly handsome his features, how the sun brought out the rare shade of his thick mustache and clustering masses of gold-brown hair. Then his figure, how tall and manly it was as it sat with martial grace in the saddle.
“I hate him, but—he is rather good-looking,” she admitted to herself, with reluctant justice.
“Marse Cece,” burst in Uncle Abe, with startling abruptness, “aine you gwine to de pos’-office, too?”
“Yes, Uncle Abe.”
The artful old negro chuckled audibly: