say with some effusion:--

"But I hope we are not too late NOW. I think my principals are quite
ready and able to buy up any English or French investor now or to come."

"Yo' might try yo' hand on that one," said Miss Sally, pointing to a
young fellow who had just emerged from the office and was crossing the
courtyard. "He's the English agent."

He was square-shouldered and round-headed, fresh and clean looking in
his white flannels, but with an air of being utterly distinct and alien
to everything around him, and mentally and morally irreconcilable to it.
As he passed the house he glanced shyly at it; his eye brightened and
his manner became self-conscious as he caught sight of the young girl,
but changed again when he saw her companion. Courtland likewise was
conscious of a certain uneasiness; it was one thing to be helping Miss
Sally ALONE, but certainly another thing to be doing so under the eye
of a stranger; and I am afraid that he met the stony observation of the
Englishman with an equally cold stare. Miss Sally alone retained her
languid ease and self-possession. She called out, "Wait a moment, Mr.
Champney," slipped lightly down the ladder, and leaning against it with
one foot on its lowest rung awaited his approach.

"I reckoned yo' might be passing by," she said, as he came forward.
"Co'nnle Courtland," with an explanatory wave of the hammer towards her
companion, who remained erect and slightly stiffened on the cornice,
"is no relation to those figures along the frieze of the Redlands Court
House, but a No'th'n officer, a friend of Major Reed's, who's come down
here to look after So'th'n property for some No'th'n capitalists. Mr.
Champney," she continued, turning and lifting her eyes to Courtland as