with the owner. Soon the large porch with its green blinds, and the
sweetbrier entwining them, came in view, and the family party that occupied
it were discernible. Before Mr. Barbour had reached the point for alighting
from his horse, a servant stood in readiness to take charge of him, and
Alice Weston emerged from her hiding-place among the roses, with her usual
sweet words of welcome. Mr. Weston, the owner of the mansion and its
adjoining plantation, arose with a dignified but cordial greeting; and Mrs.
Weston, his sister-in-law, and Miss Janet, united with him in his kind
reception of a valued guest and friend.

Mr. Weston was a widower, with an only son; the young gentleman was at this
time at Yale College. He had been absent for three years; and so anxious
was he to graduate with honor, that he had chosen not to return to Virginia
until his course of study should be completed. The family had visited him
during the first year of his exile, as he called it, but it had now been
two years since he had seen any member of it. There was an engagement
between him and his cousin, though Alice was but fifteen when it was
formed. They had been associated from the earliest period of their lives,
and Arthur declared that should he return home on a visit, he would not be
able to break away from its happiness to the routine of a college life: he
yielded therefore to the earnest entreaties of his father, to remain at New
Haven until he graduated.

Mr. Weston will stand for a specimen of the southern gentleman of the old
school. The bland and cheerful expression of his countenance, the
arrangement of his soft fine hair, the fineness of the texture and the
perfect cleanliness of every part of his dress, the plaiting of his
old-fashioned shirt ruffles, the whiteness of his hand, and the sound of
his clear, well-modulated voice--in fact, every item of his appearance--won
the good opinion of a stranger; while the feelings of his heart and his