I could not fail to notice the quick glance with which Orme took in the face and figure of Grace Sheraton; and, indeed he had been a critical man who would not have called her fair to look upon.
The elder members of the party fell to conversing in their rocking-chairs there on the lawn, and I was selfish enough to withdraw Miss Grace to the gallery steps, where we sat for a time, laughing and talking, while I pulled the ears of their hunting dog, and rolled under foot a puppy or two, which were my friends.

I say, none could have failed to call Grace Sheraton fair.

It pleased me better to sit there on the gallery steps and talk with her than to listen once more to the arguments over slavery and secession.

I could hear Colonel Sheraton's deep voice every now and then emphatically coinciding with some statement made by Orme.

I could see the clean-cut features of the latter, and his gestures, strongly but not flamboyantly made.
As for us two, the language that goes without speech between a young man and a maid passed between us.