Miss Archer Archer; A Novel

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. MOUNT VEKNON. The next morning, the weather not having reconsidered its pleasant truce, and Russell Andreas having some insurance business which called him to Alexandria, he suddenly decided to proceed thither by boat. He settled himself in a quiet corner of the deck with his newspaper, and becoming absorbed in its contents, noted nothing of the passing and repass- ing near him until the bell, ringing for the start, caused him to look up and discover that a good many people beside himself had taken advantage of the sunny morning for a river trip. He let his glance stray mechanically over his neighbors, and it was quite a matter of course that many of them were looking at himself. Only one face did he recognize, and that only after a minute's waiting to make sure that he was not mistaken. He had not before seen her with a hat on, and she was not one of those now honoring him with an inspection. He obtained only a three- quarters view of her face as she looked absorbedly toward the river-bank. There could be no doubt, as time went on, whatshe was watching for, for when the boat passed near Washington Barracks, she started up from her chair and gazed eagerly at the unsatisfactory view of quarters and parade ground, the dash of bright color where a sentinel guarded his post, and the stars and stripes floating over all. Now the girl's lips parted, and her color deepened in the spring wind, while the soft touch of her brown hair caressed her temples. She looked very young and innocent in her tall girlhood; her large blue eyes were exceptionally childlike in expression, Andreas thought, ? for by this time he had moved to where he could see her eyes, although he was careful not to appear to observe them. He was a wary young man, and, owing to his physical pe...