"My dear, if a walk with Randy is heavenly, what will you call Heaven
when you get to it?"

They drove through the first gate, and Calvin climbed down to open it.
Beyond the gate the road descended gradually through an open pasture,
where sheep grazed on the hillside or lay at rest in the shade. The
bells of the leaders tinkled faintly, the ewes and the lambs were
calling. Beyond the big gate, the highroad was washed with the recent
rains. From the gate to the club was a matter of five miles, and the
bays ate up the distance easily.

The people on the porch of the Country Club were very gay and gorgeous,
so that Becky in her careless frock and shabby shoes would have been a
pitiful contrast if she had cared in the least what the people on the
porch thought of her. But she did not care. She nodded and smiled to
a friend or two as the Judge stopped for a moment in the crush of
motors.

George Dalton was on the porch. When he saw Becky he leaned forward
for a good look at her.

"Some girl," he said to Waterman, as the surrey moved on, "the one in
the sailor hat. Who is she?"

Oscar Waterman was a newcomer in Albemarle. He had bought a thousand
acres, with an idea of grafting on to Southern environment his own
ideas of luxurious living. The county families had not called, but he
was not yet aware of his social isolation. He was rich, and most of
the county families were poor--from his point of view the odds were in