Page:The Berkeleys and their neighbors.djvu/130

 *tain grace, offered Olivia his one arm to alight from the carriage. The Colonel scrambled out and immediately seized Miles.

"My dear fellow, driving through this plantation to-day brought back to me your father's purchase of that woodland down by the creek in 'forty-six."

Anything that occurred in 'forty-six had such a charm for Colonel Berkeley that Miles knew he was in for it. The Colonel took his arm and trotted up and down the portico, pointing out various ways in which the late Mr. Pembroke, his devoted friend, had neglected the Colonel's advice in regard to farming, and the numberless evils that had resulted therefrom. Colonel Berkeley entirely forgot that his own farming was not above reproach, and if he had been reduced to his land for a living, instead of that lucky property at the North that he had so strenuously tried to make way with, he would indeed have been in a bad way. But the Colonel was a famous farmer on paper, was president of the Farmers' Club of the county, had published several pamphlets on subsoil drainage, and was a frequent contributor to the columns of the Southern Planter before the war.

Cave and Olivia, finding themselves temporarily thrown on each other, concluded to walk through the grounds. Madame Koller and her mother had not yet arrived, and under the huge trees, a little distance off, they could see Pembroke talking with his visitor, as the latter mounted his horse to ride away.