One lesson she had at heart. She took the young men about her without an atom of seriousness. It was this which nettled Frank Lawson.
His attentions had been taken quite seriously usually, too seriously once, he might have remembered. It aroused his insistence; it sent him loitering by the gate to the grounds when Frances came driving down the ribbony road winding outwards.
"I think you might take me," he declared, as she drove slowly by.
"Jump in!" Frances pulled the horse around and left the wheels towards him hospitably opened.
Lawson thought of the beauty he had driven the afternoon before, of the roses on her breast for which she had thanked him so graciously, of the shining skins of his horses and the glittering wheels of his carriage, and he set his teeth; but he climbed up into the trap and sat down by Frances' side.
She did not offer him the reins, and he hated being driven by a woman.
"Out towards Monticello and down beyond the University and Park Street; but you don't know this."
Frances had turned towards town, and was driving smartly past Chancellor's and Anderson's, bookstore and drug store and loitering grounds of the students, though the porches were empty now, along the long street, across the high bridge spanning the narrow valley through which the Southern railroad swept into the town, on down a steep hill; and then she pulled sharply to the left, down a rough road past negro cabins, another sharp hill, across a clear mountain stream, and they were in the country.
"You've never been this way before," repeated Frances as she began to point out the features of the country. She spoke of house and cabin and mill; but Lawson's eyes were turned towards the misty mountains. The keen air blew in his face, the frosty touch sent his pulses tingling: the smell of green grass and falling leaves and fresh earth was abroad, and over there, to right to left, swam the mountain-tops in purple mists. Each hill they topped showed vistas of hill and valley and far-reaching crest.
The horse went at a good pace; his driver was the most companionable of drivers; Lawson was absurdly happy.
"What's that little blue flower?" he asked, pointing to a starry bloom, daisy-shaped, blossoming on a weed-like stem.