Southern bred as the negro was he could not conceive of a white
lady's riding without an escort, and failing to see said escort,
he fancied it must be some diminutive child perched upon the
horse, and was looking to find him, feeling naturally curious to
know how the negroes of Yankee land differed from those of
Florida. All this Edith understood afterward, but she was too much
excited now to thing of any thing except that she had probably
made herself ridiculous in the eyes of Arthur St. Claire, who
adroitly rescued her from a fall in the mud, by catching her about
the waist and clasping one of her hands.
"Miss Hastings, I believe," he said, when he saw that she had
regained her equilibrium, "This is a pleasure I hardly expected in
this storm,--but come in. You are drenched with rain;" and still
holding her hand, he led her into the library, where a cheerful
fire was blazing.
Drawing a chair before it he made her sit down, while he untied
and removed her hat, brushing the drops of rain from her hair, and
doing it in so quiet, familiar, and withal so womanly a manner
that Edith began to feel quite at home with him, and to think she
had not done so foolish a thing, after all, in coming there.
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