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she should spend a few weeks in the spring and a few in the late summer or autumn of every year with them. They welcomed the arrangement as one which would at least give them an opportunity to "form the girl." During her semi-annual visits to The Oaks they very diligently set themselves to work drilling her in the matter of respect for the formalities of life.

      The process rather interested Agatha, and sometimes it even amused her. She was solemnly enjoined not to do things that she had never thought of doing, and as earnestly instructed to do things which she had never in her life neglected to do.

      At first she was too young to formulate the causes of her interest and amusement in this process. But her mind matured rapidly in association with her grandfather, and she began at last to analyse the matter.

      "When I go to The Oaks," she wrote to her "Chummie" one day, "I feel like a sinner going to do penance; but the penance is rather amusing than annoying. I am made to feel how shockingly improper I have been at Willoughby with you, Chummie, during the preceding six months, and how necessary it is for me to submit myself for a season to a control that shall undo the effects of the liberty in which I live at Willoughby. I am made to understand that liberty is the very worst thing a girl or a woman can indulge herself in. Am I very bad, Chummie?"

      For answer the old gentleman laughed aloud. Then he wrote:

      "You see how shrewdly I have managed this thing, Ladybird. I wouldn't let you go to The Oaks till you had become too fully confirmed in your habit of being free, ever to be reformed."

      Later, and more seriously, he said to the girl:

      "Every human being is the better for being free—women as well as men. Liberty to a human being is like sunshine and fresh air. Restraint is like medicine—excellent for those who are ill, but very bad indeed for healthy people. Did it ever occur to you, Agatha, that you never took a pill or a powder in your life? You haven't needed medicine because you've had air and sunshine; no more do you need restraint, and for the same reason. You are perfectly healthy in your mind as well as in your body."

      "But, Chummie, you don't know how very ill regulated I am. Aunt Sarah and Aunt Jane disapprove very seriously of many things that I do."

      "What things?"

      "Well, they say, for example, that it is very unladylike for me to call you 'Chummie,'—that it indicates a want of that respect for age and superiority which every young person—you know I am only a 'young person' to them—should scrupulously cultivate."

      "Well, now, let me give you warning, Miss Agatha Ronald; if you ever call me anything but 'Chummie,' I'll alter my will, and leave this plantation to the Abolitionist Society as an experiment station."

      Nevertheless, Agatha Ronald was, as has been said at the beginning of this chapter, a particularly well ordered young gentlewoman so long as she remained as a guest with her aunts at The Oaks. She loved the gentle old ladies dearly, and strove with all her might, while with them, to comport herself in accordance with their standards of conduct on the part of a young gentlewoman.

      Sometimes, however, her innocence misled her, as it had done on that morning when Baillie Pegram had met her at the bridge over Dogwood Branch. The spirit of the morning had taken possession of her on that occasion, and she had so far reverted from her condition of dame-nurtured grace into her habitual state of nature as to mount her horse and ride away without the escort even of a negro groom. It was not at all unusual at that time for young gentlewomen in Virginia to ride thus alone, but The Oaks ladies strongly disapproved the custom, as they disapproved all other customs that had come into being since their own youth had passed away, especially all customs that in any way tended to enlarge the innocent liberty of young women. On this point the good ladies were as rigidly insistent as if they had been the ladies superior of a convent of young nuns. They could not have held liberty for young gentlewomen in greater dread and detestation, had they believed, as they certainly did not, in the total depravity of womankind.

      "It is not that we fear you would do anything wrong, dear," they would gently explain. "It is only that—well, you see a young gentlewoman cannot be too careful."

      Agatha did not see, but she yielded to the prejudices of her aunts with a loyalty all the more creditable to her for the reason that she did not and could not share their views. On this occasion she had not thought of offending. It had not occurred to her that there could be the slightest impropriety in her desire to greet the morning on horseback, and certainly it had not entered her mind that she might meet Baillie Pegram and be compelled to accept a courtesy at his hands. She knew, as she rode silently homeward after that meeting at the bridge, that in this respect she had sinned beyond overlooking.

      For Agatha Ronald knew that she must be on none but the most distant and formal terms with the master of Warlock. She had learned that lesson at Christmas-time, three months before. She had spent the Christmas season in Richmond, with some friends. There Baillie Pegram had met her for the first time since she had attained her womanhood—for he had been away at college, at law school, or on his travels at the time of all her more recent sojourns at The Oaks. He had known her very slightly as a shy and wild little girl, but the woman Agatha was a revelation to him, and her beauty not less than her charm of manner and her unusual intelligence, had fascinated him. He frequented the house of her Richmond friends, and had opportunities to learn more every day of herself. He did not pause to analyse his feeling for her; he only knew that it was quite different from any that he had ever experienced before. And Agatha, in her turn and in her candor, had admitted to herself that she "liked" young Pegram better than any other young man she had ever met.

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