"Oh! that would be a capital plan indeed; but I shall insist on the right to choose her," his sister cried, with returning animation.
"Oh! you are growing very liberal, to say the least, Miss Maud. I guess you will have to be satisfied with second choice," said Cliff.
After talking awhile over the mystery which had woven such a tangled web about their home in the last few days, Maud exclaimed:--
"Robbie, dear, won't you go and ask father what name was engraved on the locket? Also learn all that is possible, for I am just dying of anxiety;" but as he began to smile with derision, she added, coaxingly: "Now do go, Rob, please; that's a man; father never refuses you anything."
"Catch me at it!" cried Rob, with a shrug. "I don't hanker much after the dry job of pumping the colonel," he added, winking at Clifford significantly.
"No, no, Maud, that would never do. Let us await the confidence of our parents, and try, in the meantime, to pick up what facts we can. Who knows," he added, "but we may stumble on to some great discovery?"
Little, indeed, did he suspect the great revelations which the day held in store for them, and that events were about to transpire which would change the tenor of their whole lives.
At Mrs. Warlow's entrance the conversation took on a less sombre hue, and when she told of the news confirming the great land-sale which was soon to be held at the land office--a fact which she had learned from the Estills--it was proposed to take a drive out over the country north-east, and find a section for Maud and Rob, which the colonel would buy for their benefit at the sale.
Accordingly, after dinner, as the weather had cleared, the Warlow family drove out and viewed a well-watered, rolling tract, equal in extent to the farms of the colonel and Clifford. After an hour spent thus, it was thought advisable to drive on westward and examine a country which, in their busy farm-life, had never been viewed, save at a distance.
On arriving at a point about three miles west of their home, they drove down into a narrow valley or glen, clothed with tall blue-stem and rank sunflowers, now beginning to unfold their golden blossoms. This jungle of vegetation was woven together by the slender, leafless tendrils of the love-vine, which threw a veil of coppery red over the brilliant green of the other vegetation.