"Excuse me, Mr. Mallory," said Mrs. Randolph, lifting her hand with
her driest deprecation and her most desiccating smile, "I'm not passing
judgment or criticism. I am of a foreign race, and consequently do not
understand the freedom of American young ladies, and their familiarity
with the opposite sex. I make no charges, I only wish to assure you that
she will no doubt be found in the company and under the protection of
her own countrymen. There is," she added with ironical distinctness, "a
young mechanic, or field hand, or 'quack well-doctor,' whom she seems to
admire, and with whom she appears to be on equal terms."

Mallory regarded her for a moment fixedly, and then his sternness
relaxed to a mischievously complacent smile. "That must be young Bent,
of whom I've heard," he said with unabated cheerfulness. "And I don't
know but what she may be with him, after all. For now I think of it, a
chuckle-headed fellow, of whom a moment ago I inquired the way to your
house, told me I'd better ask the young man and young woman who were
'philandering through the wheat' yonder. Suppose we look for them. From
what I've heard of Bent he's too much wrapped up in his inventions for
flirtation, but it would be a good joke to stumble upon them."

Mrs. Randolph's eyes sparkled with a mingling of gratified malice and
undisguised contempt for the fatuous father beside her. But before she
could accept or decline the challenge, it had become useless. A murmur
of youthful voices struck her ear, and she suddenly stood upright and
transfixed in the carriage. For lounging down slowly towards them out
of the dim green aisles of the arbored wheat, lost in themselves and the
shimmering veil of their seclusion, came the engineer, Thomas Bent, and
on his arm, gazing ingenuously into his face, the figure of Adele,--her
own perfect daughter.