At these times he had his daughter with him, but the rest of the year she lived with her uncle, whose household she directed with much good will and judgment.

The old gentleman did not keep her all the summer at Midbranch.

He knew what was necessary for a young lady who had been educated in Germany and Switzerland, and who had afterwards made a very favorable impression in Paris and London; and so, during the hot weather, he took her with him to one of the fashionable Southern resorts, where they always stayed exactly six weeks.
The gentleman who was sitting on the other side of the platform, with his face turned towards her, had known Miss Roberta for a year or more, having met her at the North, and also in the Virginia mountains; and being now on a visit to the Green Sulphur Springs, about four miles from Midbranch, he rode over to see her nearly every day.

There was nothing surprising in this, because the Green Sulphur, once a much frequented resort, had seen great changes, and now, although the end of the regular season had not arrived, it had Mr Lawrence Croft for its only guest.
There was a spacious hotel there; there was a village of cottages of varying sizes; there were buildings for servants and managers; there was a ten-pin alley and a quiet ground; there were arbors and swings; and a square hole in a stone slab, through which a little pool of greenish water could be seen, with a tin cup, somewhat rusty, lying by it.

But all was quiet and deserted, except one cottage, in which the man lived who had charge of the place, and where Mr Croft boarded.