I don’t understand things very well.”

“Perhaps it is best that you never shall,” he answered. “And to most men the task of looking after an ancestral estate, and managing a plantation with more than a hundred negroes—”

“There are a hundred and eighty seven in all, if you count big and little, old and young together,” broke in the girl.

“Are there? How did you come to know the figures so precisely?”

“Why, I keep the plantation book, you know.”

“I didn’t know,” he answered.

“Yes,” she said, “I’ve kept it ever since I came to Wyanoke three or four years ago. You see your uncle didn’t like to bother with details, and so I took this off his hands, when I was so young that I wrote a great big, sprawling hand and spelled my words ever so queerly. But I wanted to help Uncle Robert. You see I liked him. If you’d rather keep the plantation book yourself, I’ll give it up to you when we go back to the house.”{59}

{59}

“I would much rather have you keep it, at least until you make up your mind whether you like me or not. Then, if you don’t like me I’ll take the book.”

“Very well,” she replied, treating his reference to her present uncertainty of mind concerning himself quite as she might have treated his reference to a weather contingency of the morrow or of the next week. “I’ll go on with the book till then.”

By this time the pair had reached the stables, and Miss Dorothy, in that low, soft but penetrating voice which Arthur had observed and admired, called to a negro man who was dozing within:

“Ben, your master wants to see the best of the saddle horses. Bring them out, do you hear?”

The question “do you hear?” with which she ended her command was one in universal use in Virginia. If an order were given to a negro without that admonitory tag to it, it would fall idly upon heedless ears. But the moment the negro heard that question he gathered his wits together and obeyed the order.

“What sort of a horse do you like, Doctor?” asked the girl as the animals were led forth. “Can you ride?”{60}

{60}

“Why, of course,” he answered. “You know I 

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