Through the doorway, which was but two steps higher than the grass sward before it, his eyes fell upon a very pleasing scene.

To the right was the house, with its vine-covered porch and several great oak trees overhanging it, which still retained their heavy foliage, although it was beginning to lose something of its summer green.

In front of him, at the opposite end of the grassy yard, was the pretty little arbor in which he had told Mr Junius Keswick of the difficulties in the way of his speaking his mind to Miss March.

Beyond the large garden, at the back of this arbor, stretched a wide field with a fringe of woods at its distant edge, gay with the colors of autumn.
The sky was bright and blue, and fair white clouds moved slowly over its surface; the air was sunny and warm, with bumble-bees humming about some late-flowering shrubs; and, high in the air, floated two great turkey-buzzards, with a beauty of motion surpassed by no other flying thing, with never a movement of their wide-spread wings, except to give them the necessary inclination as they rose with the wind, and then turned and descended in a long sweep, only to rise again and complete the circle; sailing thus for hours, around and around, their shadows moving over the fields below them.
Fearing that he had sustained some injury more than a mere sprain, Lawrence had had the Howlett's doctor summoned, and that general practitioner had come and gone, after having assured Mr Croft that no bones had been broken; that Mrs Keswick's treatment was exactly what it should be, and that all that was necessary for him was to remain quiet for a few days, and be very careful not to use the injured ankle.

Thus he had the prospect of but a short confinement; he felt no present pain; and there was nothing of the sick-room atmosphere in his surroundings, for his position close to the door almost gave him the advantage of sitting in the open air of this bright autumnal day.
But Lawrence's mind dwelt not at all on these ameliorating circumstances; it dwelt only upon the fact that he was in one house and Miss March was in another.