A TALE OF AMERICAN SOCIETY, IN FOUR CHAPTERS.
CHAPTER III.
I was nearly asleep, though my thoughts were entertaining enough, when again footsteps entered the arbor below. This time the intruder did not pause. A woman's voice humming an air seemed to approach, and in a moment more a swift hand parted the bushes behind me, and Blanche Furnaval appeared. I was very much surprised, but stood up to make way for her, at the same time throwing aside my cigar.
"I beg your pardon," she exclaimed immediately, clearly as much astonished as I: "I did not know any one had found this pretty spot but myself."
"I think I know how to look for pretty things," I replied, gazing at her face, which was glowing from quick walking, though her breath came evenly through her parted lips.
"Do you never tire of making those silly speeches?" she asked, lifting her gray eyes candidly to my face. "Excuse me, you need not answer: I am very brusque. You see I did not expect to find any one here, and consequently left my company manners at home. I am sorry to have disturbed you," she continued, turning to go.
"Let us compare notes, Miss Blanche, and see to whom the rock belongs by right of discovery. Won't you be seated?" I said, making a place for her.
"I came to see the sunset," she replied after a moment's hesitation, "and if it won't incommode you I will stay. Should you not care to talk, please read on: I shall not mind. And won't you light another cigar? I have no objection to cigars in the open air, though I think them disgusting in the house."
"Thank you," I said as she sat down and I took another Havana for the one I had thrown away at her arrival. "Will you relate to me the manner of your discovery? I would rather not read."
"About two weeks ago," she began, looking over the landscape, and not at me, "I was sitting in the arbor below, and I heard Mrs.—well, a lady coming whom, to be sincere with you, I dislike. If I stayed, I knew she would have a long talk with me: if I walked on, she might call me back. I looked about in haste for a hiding-place. The bushes near me appeared as if I might get behind them: I pushed through, saw a little path, which I followed, turned round the base of a hillock, and found two rocks, upon which I raised myself with the help of a sapling. Then, carefully parting the branches, I saw this," waving her small hand that I might see it, but still not looking at me. "The sun was just setting; away down in yonder field the sorrel was as fire in its rays; a catbird was reciting a merry pastoral in the thicket beyond; two goats stood high on a bank, like satyrs guarding the place. You see why I come again."