CHAPTER XIII.GUILDFORDCarolina never forgot that morning. She was up at four o'clock, and, by a previous arrangement with old Aunt Calla, the cook, she had a cup of coffee at dawn. Aunt Calla brought it into the dining-room herself."'Scuse me, honey, fer waiting awn you myself, but do you reckon I could 'a' got dat no 'count fool, Lily, to git up en wait awn ennybody at dis time in de mawnin'? Not ef she knowed huh soul gwine be saved by doin' it. Dese yere chillen ob mine is too fine to wuk lake dere mammy does.""But how did you manage to wake up so early?" asked Carolina."Lawd, honey, I'se done nussed sick chillen tell I sleeps wid one eye open from habit. En when I see what a pretty day it gwine turn out, en when I see dat en de fust five minutes you laid eyes awn him, you done cotched de beau what half de young ladies in Souf Calliny done set dere caps for, I says to myself, 'Ole 'ooman, ef you wants to see courtin' as is courtin', you jes' hump doze ole rheumatiz laigs ob yours, en get dar 'fore dey suspicion it demselves!' Law, Mis' Calline, how you is blushing! Ump! ump!""Here, Aunt Calla, take this for your trouble, and go and see if Mr. La Grange has come," cried Carolina."Why, Mis' Calline, dis yere will buy me a new bunnet! Thank you,ma'am. Yas'm, dah he is! I kin tell de way Mist' Moultrie rides wid my eyes shut. He rides lake one ob dese yere centipedes!"Old Calla made it a point to see the riders mount. The sun was just coming into view, sending the mists rolling upwards in silvery clouds, when Carolina stepped out of the door. Her habit was of a bluish violet, so dark that it was almost black. It matched the colour of her eyes. Her hair caught the tinge of the sun and held it in its shining meshes.Moultrie La Grange was waiting for her at the foot of the steps.He held the mare Araby by the bridle, and leaned on the saddle of his own mare, Scintilla, shielding his eyes."Good morning,--Moultrie.""Is that you, Miss Carolina? The sun, or something blinds me."Carolina had heard it all many times before. Why, then, this difference? She pretended to herself that she did not know, but she did know, and was happy in the knowing. He was so handsome! She gloried in his looks. She felt as she had felt when she stood before the Hermes of Praxiteles, and wondered, if such glorious beauty should ever come to life, how she couldbearit!Moultrie La Grange was not considered handsome by everybody. His beauty was too cold--too aloof--for the multitude to appreciate. But does the ordinary tourist go to Olympia?Carolina had rather dreaded the four miles to Enterprise, if their way should lie over the dusty highway of yesterday. But she was not surprised; in fact, it seemed in keeping with what she had expected of him when he struck off through the woods, and she found herself, not only on the most perfect animal she had ever ridden, but in an enchanted forest.Moultrie led the way both in conversation and in direction, and Carolina found herself glad to follow. His sarcasm, his wit, and the poetry of his nature were displayed without affectation. She kept looking at him eagerly, gladly, and yet expectantly. What was she waiting for? He discussed men but not deeds; amusements but not occupation; designs but not achievements. She wondered what he did with his time. He was strong, magnetic, gentle, charming. His voice was melodious. His manner full of the fineness of the old South.Yet there was a vague lack in him somewhere. He just failed to come up to her ideal of what a man should be. Wherein lay this intangible lack?Suddenly they emerged from the woods and struck the highway, and in another moment they were in Enterprise.Not a breath of life was anywhere visible. Although it was six o'clock, not a wreath of smoke curled upward from any chimney. They rode through the sleeping town in silence."Now here," said Moultrie, "is a very remarkable town. It is, I may say, the only town in the world which is completely finished. Most towns grow, but not a nail has been driven in Enterprise, to my knowledge, since I was born. This town is perfectly satisfactory to its inhabitantsjust as it is!"Against her will Carolina laughed. His tone was irresistible."Ought you to make fun of your own--your home town?" she asked."My more than that! Enterprise yields me my bread--sometimes."Carolina looked at him. He pointed with his whip at the shed on the railroad platform."I am telegraph operator there six months in the year. I teach a country school in winter."If he had struck her in the face with that same riding-whip, the red would not have flamed into Carolina's cheeks with more sudden fury. She dug her spurless heel into Araby's side, and the mare jumped with a swerve which would have unseated most riders. Moultrie looked at her in swift admiration, but she would not look at him. She struck her horse, and, with a mighty stride, Araby got the lead and kept it for a mile, even from Scintilla. Then the man overtook her and reached out and laid a hand on Carolina's bridle hand, and looked deep into her eyes and said:"Why did you do that? Why did you try to escape from me? Don't you know that younever can?"And all the time Carolina's heart was beating heavily against her side, and her brain was spinning out the question over and over, over and over:"Oh, how can he? How can he be satisfied with that? How can he endure himself!"It was not the lack of money, it was the lack of ambition in the man at her side, which stung her pride until it bled."Better go West on a cattle ranch," she thought, with bitter passion. "Better hunt wolves for the government. Better take the trail with the Indians than to lie down and rot in such a manner! Andsucha man!"But suddenly a realization came to her of how marked her resentment would seem to him if he should discover its cause, and she hastened to play a part. But he was in no danger of discovering, because he did not even suspect. All the young fellows he knew, no matter how aristocratic their names, were at work for mere pittances at employments no self-respecting men would tolerate for a moment, because they offered no hope of betterment or promotion. Men with the talent to become lawyers, artists, bankers, and brokers were teaching school for less than Irish bricklayers get in large cities. Therefore, it could not be alleged that they were incapable of earning more or of occupying more dignified positions. It was simply the lack of ambition--the inertia of the South--which they could not shake off. It is the heritage of the Southern-born.Presently Moultrie again pointed with his whip:"Over yonder is Sunnymede, our place. Poor old Sunnymede! Mortgaged to its eyes, and with all its turpentine and timber gone! Guildford is intact. We just skirt the edge of Sunnymede riding to Guildford. And right where you see that tall blasted pine standing by itself is where I made one of my usual failures. I'm like the man with the ugly mule, who always backed. He said if he could only hitch that mule with his head to the wagon, he could get there. So, if my failures were only turned wrong side out, I'd be wealthy."Carolina tried to smile. Moultrie continued:"Once I thought I'd try to make some money, so I sold some timber to a Yankee firm who wanted fine cypress, and with the money I constructed a terrapin crawl. I knew how expensive terrapin are, and, if there is one thing I do know about, it is terrapin. So I canned a few prize-winners, and sent them to New York, and got word that they would take all I could send. Well, with that I began to feel like a Jay Gould. I could just see myself drinking champagne and going to the opera every night. So I immediately raised some mo' money in the same way,--out of the Yankees,--organized a small company, and built a canning factory. The lumber company was interested with me and advanced me all the money I wanted. So I got the thing well started, and left special word with the foreman, a cracker named Sharpe, to be sure and not can the claws, then I went off to New York to enjoy myself. I stayed until all my money was gone and then came home, intending to enjoy the wealth my foreman had built up in my absence. But what do you reckon that fool had done? Why, he had turned the work over to the niggers, and they had canned the terrapin just so,--claws, eyebrows, and all! Well, of course, the New York people went back on me,--wrote me the most impudent letters I ever got from anybody. It just showed me that Yankees can never hope to be considered gentlemen. Why, they acted as if I had cheated them! Said they had advertised largely on my samples, and had lost money and credit by my dishonest trickery. Just as ifIwere to blame! Then, of course, the Yankee lumbermen got mad, too, and foreclosed the mortgage and liquidated the company, and left me as poor as when I went in. I believe they even declare that I owe them money. Did you ever hear of such a piece of impudence?""Never," said Carolina, coolly, "if you mean on your part! You did everything that was wrong and nothing that was right. And the worst of it is that you are morally blind to your share of the blame.""Why, Miss Carolina, what do you mean? I didn't go to lose their money. It hit me just as hard as it did them. I didn't make a cent.""But the money that you lost wasn't yours to lose," cried Carolina, hotly."No, but I didn't do wrong intentionally. You can't blame a man for a mistake.""There is such a thing as criminal negligence," said the girl, deliberately. "You had no business to trust an affair where your honour was pledged to an incompetent cracker foreman, and go to New York on the company's money, even if you did think you would earn the money to pay it back. How do you ever expect to pay it?""I don't expect to pay it at all, and I reckon those Yankees don't expect it, either.""No, I don't suppose they do," said Carolina, bitterly."Well, if they are satisfied to lose it, and have forgotten all about it, would you bother to pay it back if you were in my place?""I would pay it back if I had to pay it out of my life insurance and be buried in a pine coffin in the potter's field! And as to those Northerners having forgotten it,--don't you believe it! They have simply laid it to what they call the to-be-expected dishonesty of the South when dealing with the North. The South calls it 'keeping their eyes peeled,' 'being wide-awake,' 'not being caught napping,' or catch phrases of that order. But the strictly honest business man calls it dishonest trickery, and mentally considers all Southerners inoculated with its poison. Do you know what Southern credit is worth in the North?"Moultrie only looked sulky, but Carolina went on, spurred by her own despair and disillusionment."Well, you wouldn't be proud of it if you did! And just such a tolerant view of a thoroughly wrong transaction as you have thus divulged is responsible. Colonel Yancey was right. The South is heart-breaking!""Do you care so much?" asked Moultrie, softly.Carolina lifted herself so proudly that the mare danced under her. She saw that she had gone too far. She also felt that error had mocked her. She had despaired of Moultrie's blind and false point of view when the Light of the world was at hand. Immediately her thought flew upwards.But with Carolina absorbed in her work, and Moultrie puzzling over the sudden changes in her behaviour, it could not be said that the remainder of the ride was proving as pleasant as each had hoped. However, a perfect day, a fine animal, and the spirits of youth and enthusiasm are not to be ignored for long, and presently Carolina began to feel Guildford in the air. She looked inquiringly at Moultrie, and he answered briefly:"In another mile." But there was a look in his eyes which made Carolina's heart beat, for it was the glance of comprehension which one soul flings to another in passing,--sometimes never to meet again, sometimes which leads to mating.In another five minutes Moultrie raised his arm."There!"Carolina reined in and Araby stood, tossing her slim head, raising her hoofs, champing her bit, and snuffing at the breeze which came to her red nostrils, laden with the breath of piny woods and balsam. Moultrie, sitting at parade rest on Scintilla and watching Carolina catch her breath almost with a sob, said to himself: "She feels just as that horse acts."Carolina could find no words, nor did she dare trust herself. She was afraid she would break down. She lifted her gauntleted hand and the horses drew together and moved forward.For more than a mile an avenue as wide as a boulevard led in a straight line, lined on each side by giant live-oaks. Ragged, unkempt shrubbery, the neglect of a lifetime, destroyed the perfectness of the avenue, but the majesty of those monarchs of trees could not be marred. The sun was only about an hour high, and the rays came slantingly across meadows whose very grasses spoke of fertility and richness. The glint of the river occasionally flashed across their vision, and between the bird-notes, in the absolute stillness, came the whispering of the distant tide.At the end of the avenue lay the ruined stones of Guildford.Carolina sprang down, flung her bridle-rein to Moultrie, and ran forward. She would not let him see her eyes. But she stumbled once, and by that he knew that she was crying. They were, however, tears of joy and thanksgiving. Guildford! Her foot was on its precious turf. These stones had once been her father's home. And she was free, young, strong, and empowered to build it up, a monument to the memory of her ancestors. Every word which Mrs. Goddard had prophesied had come true, and Carolina's first thought was a repetition of her words:"See what Divine Love hath wrought!"When she came back, instead of a tear-stained face, Moultrie saw one of such radiance that her beauty seemed dazzling. Where could be found such tints of colouring, such luminous depths in eyes, such tendrils of curling hair, such a flash of teeth, such vivid lips, and such a speaking smile? As he bent to receive her foot in his hand, he trembled through all his frame, and, as he felt her light spring to her mare's back, he would not have been at all surprised to discover that she had simply floated upward and vanished from his earthly sight to join her winged kindred. But, as she gathered up her reins and watched him mount, it was a very businesslike angel who spoke to him, and one whose brain, if the truth must be told, was full of turpentine."Now, let's explore," she said. "I have paid my respects to the shrine of my forefathers, now let's see what I have to sell my turpentine farmers.""Your what?" asked the man, with the amused smile a man saves for the pretty woman who talks business."I am going to sell the orchard turpentine rights of Guildford to get money for building," she said, in a matter-of-fact tone."And I was thinking of you in a white robe playing a harp!" he said, with a groan."I often wear a white robe, and I play a harp quite commendably, considering that I have studied it since I was nine years old, but when I am working, I don't wear my wings. They get in my way."Carolina by instinct rode to an elevation which commanded a view of the pine forests of Guildford."How much do I own?" she asked."As far as you can see in that direction. Over here your property runs into ours just where you see that broad gap.""Why don't you rebuild Sunnymede?""No money!" he said, with a shrug."You have plenty of fallen timber and acres of stumpage to sell to the patent turpentine people.""I don't know. I have never heard it discussed. We wouldn't sell to Yankees. We feel that we wouldn't have come to grief with the terrapin affair if we had been dealing with Southerners.""Who are there to discuss? Who owns it with you?" asked Carolina, calmly ignoring the absurdity of his remarks."My brother and sister--" He paused abruptly, and then said: "You are sure to hear it from others, so I will tell you myself. The La Grange family skeleton shall be shown to you by no less a hand than my own! My brother has made a very--I hardly know what to call it. It is an unfortunate marriage, since no one knows who the girl is. When you saw me in New York, I was hoping to prevent their marriage, but it was too late. They had eloped and had been married immediately on arriving in New York. As soon as her aunt, with whom she lived, learned that Flower had eloped with my brother, she sent for me. She had been a great invalid, and the excitement had upset her so that when I arrived she looked as if she had not an hour to live. She caught me by the arm and said: 'Flower must not marry a La Grange. She is not my niece nor any relative of mine. Her mother was--' and with that her speech failed. She struggled as I never saw a being struggle to speak the one word more,--the one word needful,--and, failing, she fell back against her pillow--dead!"Carolina's face showed her horror. He felt soothed by her understanding and went on, in a low, pained voice."It ruined my life. And it has ruined Winfield's.""And the girl," said Carolina, in a tense voice, "Flower!""It has ruined hers. They are the most unhappy couple I ever saw. And more so since the baby came.""It will all come right," declared Carolina, straightening herself. "You will discover that Flower is entitled to a name, and that your worst fears are incorrect.""My worst fears--" began Moultrie. Then he stopped abruptly. "I cannot explain them to you," he said."I know what you mean. But remember that I, too, have seen Flower. I saw her that day, and I say to you that not one drop of negro blood flows in that girl's veins, and your brother's child is safe.""You think so?" he exclaimed, moved by the earnestness of her voice and the calm conviction of her manner. Then he shook his head."It seems too good to be true.""I can understand," she said, "the terrible strain you are all under, but, believe me, it will all come out right.""They think the baby is bewitched,--that he has been voodooed,--if you know what that means. The negroes declare that an evil spirit can be seen moving around whatever spot the child inhabits.""What utter nonsense!" cried Carolina. "I hope your brother has too much sense, too much religion, to encourage such a belief.""My poor brother believes that the devil has marked him for his own.""Does your brother believe in a devil?" asked Carolina."Why, don't you?" asked Moultrie, in a shocked tone."I was not aware that any enlightened person did nowadays," answered Carolina, with a lift of her chin.The movement irritated her companion far more than her words, just as Carolina had intended it to.There are some subjects which cannot be argued. They must be obliterated by a contempt which bites into one's self-love.The mare saved the situation by a soft whinny. She turned her head expectantly, and, following her eyes, the riders saw the tall, lithe figure of a man making his way toward them through the underbrush. Moultrie gave vent to an exclamation."What is it?" asked Carolina."Oh, only a bad negro who haunts places where he has no business to. He is a perfect wonder with horses, and broke in that mare you are riding, who will follow him anywhere without a bridle, pushing her nose under his arm like any dog who thrusts a muzzle into your palm. He is always up to something. From present appearances, I should say that he had probably been bleeding your trees."The negro, hearing voices, stopped, glanced in their direction, and promptly disappeared. Carolina only had time to notice that he was very black, but she followed him in thought, mentally denying dishonesty and declaring that harm could not come to her through error in any form.She was struck, too, by the manner in which her sensitive, high-bred mare lifted her pretty head and looked after his retreating form, pawing the earth impatiently and sending out little snuffling neighs which were hardly more than bleatings. Surely, if a man had the power to call forth devoted love from such an animal, there must be much good in him!"What makes you so quiet?" asked Moultrie, breaking in on her thought.Carolina looked at him abruptly and decided her course of action."You have told me of the skeleton in your closet. Let me be equally frank and tell you of mine. I am a Christian Scientist.""A what?""A Christian Scientist!""I never heard of one," said the young man, simply. "What is it?"For the second time the girl's face flushed with a vicarious mortification."It is a new form of religion founded on a perfect belief in the life of Christ and a literal following of His commandments to His disciples, regardless of time," said Carolina, slowly.Moultrie allowed a deep silence to follow her words. Then he drew a long breath."I think I should like that," he said. "Does it answer all your questions?""All! Every one of them!" she answered, with the almost too eager manner of the young believer in Christian Science. But an eagerness to impart good news and to relieve apparent distress should be readily forgiven by a self-loving humanity. Curiously, however, the most blatant ego is generally affronted by it."I was raised a Baptist," he said, reluctantly, "but I reckon I never was a very good one, for I never got any peace from it.""My religion gives peace.""And my prayers were never answered.""My religion answers prayers.""Not even when I lifted my heart to God in earnest pleading to spare my brother the unhappiness I felt sure would follow his marriage.HowI prayed to be in time to prevent it! God never heard me!""My religion holds the answer to that unanswered prayer.""Not even when I prayed, lying on the floor all night, for the life of my father.""My religion heals the sick."He turned to her eagerly."Do you believe so implicitly in Christ's teachings that you can reproduce His miracles?" he cried."Christ never performed any miracles. He healed sickness through the simplest belief in the world,--or rather an understanding of His Father's power. That same privilege of understanding is open to me--and to you. You have the power within you at this very moment to heal any disease, if you only know where to look for the understanding to show you how to use it.""Do you believe that?""I do better than believe it. I understand it. I know it.""Is there a book which will tell me how to find it?""Yes.""Will you order it for me, or tell me where to order it?""It is a very expensive book," said Carolina, hesitatingly, thinking of the telegraph-office."How expensive?""Three dollars.""Do you call that expensive for what you promise it will do?"When Carolina looked at him, he saw that she was smiling, but there were tears in her eyes. And he understood."You only said that to try me."And she nodded. Her heart was too full of mingled emotions for her to speak. She had loved, despised, been proud of, and mortified for this man,--all with poignant, pungent vehemence,--during this three-hour ride, and at the last he had humbled and rebuked her by his childlike readiness to believe the greatest truth of the ages. She sat her horse, biting her lips to keep back the tears."Give me just one fact to go on," he begged."Do you read your Bible?""I used to, till I found I was getting not to believe in it. Then I stopped for my dead father's sake. He believed in it implicitly.""Then you have read the fourteenth chapter of John?""I got fifty cents when I was twelve years old for learning it by heart.""Then run it over in your own mind until you come to the twelfth verse. When you get to that, say it aloud.""'Verily, verily I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.'"He did not glance her way again, which Carolina noticed with gratitude. It showed that he was not accepting it for her sake. Presently he spoke again."Did you yourself ever heal any one?""Through my understanding of Divine Love, I healed Gladys Yancey," she said, quietly.The man's face flushed with his earnestness. He lifted his hat and rode bareheaded."Do you remember what the father of the dumb child said? 'Lord, I believe! Help thou mine unbelief!'"When they rode in at the gates of Whitehall, Moultrie was astonished at the radiance of the girl's countenance. She seemed transfigured by love. Moultrie's ready belief had glorified her, and for the second time her grateful thought ascended in the words, "See what Divine Love hath wrought!"CHAPTER XIV.KINFOLKCarolina took her writing materials out on the back porch. There was not a small table in the house whose legs did not wabble, so she propped the best of them with chips from Aunt Calla's wood-pile and wrote until Aunt Calla could stand it no longer."Miss Calline, honey," she said, "you writes so fas' wid yo' fingahs, would you min' ef I brung de aigplant out here to peel it en watch you? I won't make no fuss.""Certainly not, Aunt Calla. I'd be glad to have you.""Hum! hum! You sho have got pretty mannahs, Miss Calline. Youse got de mannahs ob de ole ladies of de South. You don't see 'em now'days wid de young ladies. De young people got de po'est mannahs I ebber did see,--screechin' and hollerin' to each odder 'cross de street, or from one eend ob de house to de other. Ole mahster would 'a' lammed his chillen ef dey'd cut up sech capers en his time! But Miss Peachie,--she's got de La Grange mannahs. She's Mist' Moultrie's sistah. Dey calls her 'Peachie' caze she's got such pretty red in huh cheeks,--lake yores. Most ladies down in dese pahts is too white to suit me. I lakes 'em pinky and pretty.""Thank you, Aunt Calla!" cried Carolina. "I wonder if I couldn't get Cousin Lois to give you that black grenadine you thought was so pretty yesterday."Aunt Calla laid down her knife."Miss Calline, is you foolin' me?""No, Calla, I am not.""Dish yere grenadier dress I mean is lined wid black silk!""I know it.""En you gwine gib dat to me?""I am thinking of it.""Well, glory be! Ef you does dat, Ise gwine jine de chutch all over ag'in, en I reckon I'll jine de Babtis' dish yere time. Dey's mo' style to de Babtis' den to de Meth'diss. Ise 'bleeged to live up to dat silk linin'!"The old woman's face took on a worried look."I don' keer!" she said aloud. "I don' keer! Nemmine, Miss Calline! You wouldn' laff so ef you knew what Ise studyin' 'bout doin'. Ise been savin' my money foh two years now to get a gravestone foh my fou'th husban' what done died three yeahs ago. He baiged me wid his las' breath to bury him stylish, en I promus him I would. He was all for style. Do you know, Miss Calline, dat man would 'a' gone hongry rathah dan turn his meat ovah awn de fiah. He was de mos' dudish man I ebber see. But I can't he'p it. Ise gwine take dat grave-stone money and hab dat dress made to fit me good en stylish. En I bet Miss Peachie will charge me eve'y cent I got to do it!""Who?" demanded Carolina."Miss Peachie La Grange. She does all my sewin' foh me, an' foh Lily, too. Dat's de way she mek huh money. Yas,ma'am. Sewin' foh niggahs!"Aunt Calla paused with her mouth open, for Carolina, regardless of what anybody thought, sprang up, overturning her table, spilling her ink over Aunt Calla's clean porch floor, and scattering her papers to the four winds of heaven."Ump! So dat's de way de win' blows! Well, ef she ain't a Lee sho nuff. She's got de pride of huh ole gran'dad, en mo', too. She looked at me ez if she'd lake to kill me. I wondah ef I'll evah git dat dress now!"She sent Lily to reconnoitre."Jes' creep up en see what she's doin'. De keyhole in huh room is busted, en you kin see de whole room thoo it. Jis' go en peek. But ef you let huh ketch you, she'll know who sont you, en she'll be so mad, I nevah will git dat dress. Den I'll bust yo' yallah face open wid de i'nin' boa'd!""She ain't cryin' nor nothin'!" cried Lily, bursting into the kitchen twenty minutes later. "She's settin' in huh rockin'-cheer, wid a open book awn huh lap, en huh eyes is shut en huh lips a-movin', lake she's studyin'.""T'ank de Lawd!" observed Calla. "Somehow er odder, Ise gwine git hole ob a fryin' chicken foh huh. You tell Jake I wants tuh see him dis evenin'. Run, Lily! See who's dat drivin' in outen de big road!""Hit's de La Granges! De whole kit en bilin' ob 'em. Dey's done borried de Barnwells' double ca'y-all."Fortunately, there were many rocking-chairs at Whitehall, and, although many of them were war veterans, all were pressed into service the day the La Granges came to call. Miss Sue and Miss Sallie Yancey glanced at each other expressively when they saw that even Flower, Mrs. Winfield La Grange, was one of the party. It was the first time that she had ever been openly recognized by the La Grange family, except in name, and no one knew that it was by Moultrie's express wish that Peachie had asked her to go with them. Thus, indirectly, Carolina was at the bottom of it, after all.Peachie was pretty, but her delicate prettiness was scarcely noticeable when Carolina was in the room. Aunt Angie La Grange, Cousin Élise La Grange, Cousin Rose Manigault, with her little girl Corinne, who had come to play with Gladys and Emmeline Yancey,--all these insisted on claiming kin with Mrs. Winchester and Carolina, and, as Aunt Angie and Cousin Lois had known each other in their girlhood, and had spent much time at Guildford and Sunnymede, it was easy for them to fall into the old way of claiming cousinship, even when a slender excuse was called upon to serve.The conversation was very gay and kindly, but, under cover of its universality, Carolina managed to seat herself next to Flower La Grange, whose pale cheeks and frightened eyes proclaimed how much of a stranger she was to such scenes. When Carolina called her "Cousin Flower," the flush on her face and the look of passionate gratitude in her eyes gave Carolina ample evidence that any kindness she might choose to bestow here would be appreciated beyond reason.At first Flower was constrained and answered in monosyllables, but when Carolina adroitly mentioned the baby, Flower's whole manner thawed, and, in her eagerness, she poured forth a stream of rapturous talk which caused the others to look at her in a chilling surprise. But Flower's back was toward her haughty relatives, and only Carolina caught the glances,--Carolina, who calmly ignored them."You must come to see my baby!" cried Flower, impulsively. "He is so dear! And so smart! You can't imagine how hard it is to keep him asleep. He hears every sound and wants to be up all the time.""I suppose he notices everything, doesn't he?""No-o, I can't say that he does. He likes things that make a noise. He doesn't care much for looks. If you hold a rattle right up before his eyes, he won't pay any attention to it. But, if you shake it, he smiles and coos and reaches out for it. Oh, he is a regular boy for noise!"As Flower said this upon a moment of comparative silence, Carolina noticed that Aunt Angie grew rather pale and said:"I haven't seen your baby for several months, Flower. May I come to see him to-morrow?""Oh, I should be so glad if you would, Mrs.--""Call me mother, child," said the older woman, looking compassionately at her daughter-in-law.Flower flushed as delicately as a wild rose, and looked at Carolina, as if wondering if she had noticed this sudden access of cordiality. But to Carolina, a stranger, it seemed perfectly natural, and she rather hurriedly resumed her conversation with Flower, because she had the uneasy consciousness that Miss Sue and Aunt Angie, on the other side of the room, were talking about her. Fragments of their conversation floated over to her in the pauses of her talk with Flower."She thinks nothing of sending off ten or a dozen telegrams a day--""--she'll wear herself out--""--it can't last long. Moultrie says she shows a wonderful head for--""--and she never gets tired. I never saw such power of concentration--""--when I was a girl--""--writes--writes--writes the longest letters, and if you could see her mail!""--the very prettiest girl I ever saw,--a perfect beauty, Moultrie thinks."Carolina's little ears burned so scarlet that she got up and took Peachie and Flower out into the garden, and, as the three girls went down the steps, a perfect babel of voices arose in the parlour. Plainly Carolina's going had loosened their tongues. They drew their chairs around Mrs. Winchester's, and, although the day was cool, they gave her the warmest half-hour she could remember since she left Bombay. They could understand and excuse every feminine vagary, from stealing another woman's lover to coaxing a man to spend more than he could afford, or idling away every moment of a day over novels or embroidery, but for a beauty, a belle, a toast, a girl who had been presented at three courts before she was twenty, to come down to South Carolina and live on horseback or in a buggy, meeting men by appointment and understanding long columns of figures, sending and receiving cipher telegrams, and in all this aided and abetted by no less exclusive and particular a chaperon than Cousin Lois Winchester, Rhett Winchester's widow, herself related to the Lees,--this was a little more than they could comprehend. Nor could Miss Sue Yancey nor Miss Sallie (Mrs. Pringle), although they were in the same house with her, throw any light on the subject or help them in any way. Carolina was plainly a puzzle to the La Granges, at least, and when, that same afternoon, Carolina and the two girls in the garden saw another carryall and a buggy drive in at Whitehall, containing her father's relatives, the Lees, she frankly said that she would stay out a little longer and give them a chance to talk her over before she went in to meet them.Peachie laughed at Carolina's high colour when she said this."You mustn't get mad, Cousin Carol, because you are talked about. We talk about everybody,--it's all we have to do in the country. But you ought to be used to it. You are such a little beauty, you must have been talked about all your life.""Nonsense, Peachie!" cried Carolina, blushing. "I am not half as good-looking as you and Flower. But the way you all watch me here makes me feel as if I were a strange kind of a beetle under a powerful microscope, at the other end of which there was always a curious human eye.""Oh, Cousin Carol, you do say such quayah things!" cried Peachie, laughing."We ought to go in, I think," said Carolina. But at her words the two girls, as if nerving themselves for an ordeal planned beforehand, looked at each other, and then Peachie, in evident embarrassment, said:"Cousin Carol, I want to ask you something, and I don't want you to be offended or to think that we have no manners, but--""Go on, Peachie, dear. Ask anything you like. You won't offend me. Remember that we are all cousins down here.""I know, you dear! But maybe when you know what I want,--but you see, we never get a chance to see any of the styles--""Do you want to see my clothes?" cried Carolina. "You shall see every rag I possess, you dear children! Don't I know how awful it must be never to know what they are wearing at Church Parade. Five trunks came yesterday that haven't even been unpacked. They are just as they were packed by a frisky little Frenchman in Paris, and, as they were sent after me, they were detained in the custom-house, and, before I could get them out, I was hurt. While I was in bed, my brother got them out of the custom-house and took them tohishouse, where I forgot all about them until I was preparing to come here. Then I thought of clothes! And I also thought I might find some pretty girls down here among my relatives who would like to see the Real Thing just as it comes from the hands of the Paris couturières,--so there you are!""Oh, Carolina Lee!" shrieked Peachie, softly. "What a sweet thing you are! Just think, Flower, Paris clothes!""And better still, Vienna clothes!" said Carolina, laughing."You said you were hurt, Cousin Carol," said Flower, in her soft little voice. "How were you injured?""I was thrown from my horse, Flower, dear, and my hip was broken. I was in bed for months with it.""But you were cured," said Flower. "I never heard of a broken hip that didn't leave a limp. There must be mighty fine doctors in New York.""There are!" said Carolina, softly. Then she turned suddenly and led the way to the house, the girls eagerly following.It will be difficult and not at all to the point to try to learn the relationship of the Lees and La Granges to Carolina and to each other. Aunt Angie La Grange was Moultrie's, Winfield's, and Peachie's mother. Rose Manigault was Aunt Angie's married sister, and Élise an unmarried one.Of the Lees, there was Aunt Evelyn Lee, Carolina's own maiden aunt. Aunt Isabel Fitzhugh, her married aunt, with her two daughters, Eppie and Marie. Uncle Gordon Fitzhugh, Aunt Isabel's husband, and a bachelor cousin of Carolina's, De Courcey Lee, were the ones who had come in the buggy with the two little Fitzhugh boys, Teddy and Bob.The children could not be induced to leave the parlour until they had seen their new cousin, they had heard so much of her beauty from Moultrie, so that, when Carolina entered and was introduced to her admiring relatives, none was more admiring than the children. Indeed, Bob Fitzhugh announced to his father, as they were driving home that evening, that he was going to marry Cousin Carol. He said that he had already asked her, and that she had told him that she was ten years older than he was, but that, if he still wanted her when he was twenty-one and she hadn't married any one in the meantime, she would marry him."You couldn't do better, son," said his father, nudging De Courcey, "and I commend your promptness, for, as Carolina is the prettiest--the very prettiest little woman I ever saw, the other boys will doubtless get after her, and it's just as well to have filed your petition beforehand."Indeed the verdict on Carolina was universally favourable. Her relatives were familiar with her photographs, and were proud of the accounts which at intervals had filtered home to them through letters and newspapers, but the girl's beauty of colouring had so far outshone their expectations, and her exquisite modesty had so captivated them that they annexed her bodily, and quoted her and praised and flattered her until she hardly knew where to turn. She won the Fitzhugh hearts by her devotion to Teddy, the seven-year-old boy, who could not speak an intelligible word on account of a cleft palate. She took him with her on the sofa and talked to him and encouraged him to try to answer, until the mother, though her soul was filled with the most passionate gratitude, unselfishly called the boy away, saying, in a hurried aside to Carolina:"Thank you, and God bless you, my darling girl, for trying to help my baby boy, but you owe your attention to the grown people, who, some of them, have driven twenty miles to see your sweet face. Some day, Carolina, I want you to come and spend a week with us, and tell me about the best doctor to send the child to. You must know all about such things, coming from New York."She won the heart of her bachelor cousin, a man of nearly sixty, by allowing him to lead her to a sofa and question her about her father, his last days in London, and of how she had inherited her love for Guildford."For it is an inheritance, Carolina, my dear. Your father loved the place as not one of us do who have stayed near it.""Yes, Cousin De Courcey, I think you are right. Daddy used to dream of it.""Did he ever tell you of the loss of the family silver?""Yes, he said it was lost during the war.""Did he never tell you of his suspicions concerning it?""No, because I don't think he had any.""Pardon me for disagreeing with you, my dear, but in letters to me he has stated it. You know our family silver included many historical pieces,--gifts from great men, who had been guests at Guildford,--besides all that the family had inherited on both sides for generations. Many of these pieces were engraved and inscribed, and, unless they were melted at once, could have been traced. Your grandfather and your father, being the only ones fortunate enough to have increased their fortunes, undertook to search the world over for traces of this silver, but, as not so much as a teaspoon of it was ever found, we think it is still buried somewhere near here,--possibly on the estate. Aunt 'Polyte, your father's black mammy, and her husband buried it, and to the day of their death they swore it was not stolen by the Yankees, for, when they missed it, there were no Federal troops within fifty miles. They both declared that some one traced them in their frequent pilgrimages to its hiding-place to ascertain that it was intact, and that the Lee family will yet come into its own. As you seem to be our good angel, it will probably be you who will find it. Doesn't something tell you that you will?""Yes, something tells me that it is not lost," said Carolina, with grave eyes. "I came into the possession of Guildford so wonderfully, perhaps I shall find the Lee silver by the same means."Just then Mrs. Pringle hurried into the room, saying hospitably:"Now listen to me, good people. You all don't come to Whitehall so often that we don't feel the honour, and now that you are here, you must stay to supper. Don't say a word! I'll tell Jake to hitch up and go after Moultrie and Winfield, and there's a full moon to-night, so you won't have any trouble in getting home. Élise, if you are too big a coward to drive twenty miles after dark, you can stay here all night. Flower, do you trust your nurse to stay with the baby?""Oh, yes, indeed, thank you, Miss Sallie. I'll just write a note to Winfield and send it by Jake, if I may, telling him to see that Aunt Tempy and the baby are all right before he starts, then I won't be a bit uneasy."The La Granges had never heard their unpopular kinswoman make so long a speech before, and, as they listened to it, with critical, if not hostile ears, they were forced to admit that she exhibited both spirit and breeding, and her voice had a curious low-toned dignity which indicated an inherited power.Whitehall had not been famous for its hospitality since the death of Elliott Pringle, Miss Sallie's husband. During his lifetime they had kept open house, and Miss Sallie was the soul of hospitality. She would dearly have loved to continue his policy and the prestige of Whitehall, but her sister, Sue Yancey, was, in popular parlance, called "the stingiest old maid in the State of Georgia," and when she came to live with her widowed sister she watched the expenditures at Whitehall, until nobody who ever dined there had enough to eat. There was a story going around that the reason she lost the only beau she ever had, was because once when he was going on a journey she asked him to take out an accident insurance policy, and when he told her that he was all alone in the world and that no one would be benefited by his death, she told him to send the ticket to her. Rumour said that he sent the ticket, but that he never came back to Sue.Sue either cared nothing for the good opinion of other people or she made the mistake of underestimating her friends' intelligence, for she carried her thrift with a high hand. At Sunday-school picnics it was no uncommon sight for the neighbours to see Miss Sue Yancey going around to the different tables gathering all that was edible into her basket to take home with her. And that these scraps subsequently appeared on the table at Whitehall often led to high words between the sisters; but in the end it always happened that Sue conquered, because Mrs. Pringle dreaded her sister's bitter tongue and ungoverned temper.Yet Sue often complained that she felt so alone in the world because no one understood her."Don't stay," whispered Gordon Fitzhugh, in his wife's ear. "Sue never gives me enough sugar in my tea!"Carolina could not help overhearing. She looked up quickly and laughed."Are you getting thin?" he whispered. "Does Sue give you as hash for supper the beef the soup is made from?""I think Miss Sallie is ordering while we are here," said Carolina, loyally. She would not tell her Uncle Fitzhugh that one morning when Lily was taking Cousin Lois's breakfast up to her, when her asthma was bad, that Sue had waylaid Lily in the hall and had taken the extra butter ball off the tray and carried it back to the dining-room in triumph."I admire economy," said Uncle Fitzhugh. "Sue's ancestors were French, but, in her case, French thrift has degenerated into American meanness.""You stay," said Carolina, dimpling, "and I'll see that you get all the sugar you want, if I have to ask for it myself!""Then I'll stay," chuckled Uncle Fitzhugh, and he beckoned to De Courcey to come out into the garden and have a smoke--in reality to gossip.Hardly were the gentlemen out of sight when Peachie said, excitedly:"Mamma, do beg them all to excuse Cousin Carol, Flower, and me! Carol has promised to show us her Paris clothes--five trunks full of them!" Her voice rose to a little shriek of ecstasy, which was echoed in various keys all over the room. Every face took on a look of intense excitement and anticipation."Excuse you!" cried Aunt Angie La Grange. "We shall do no such thing. If Carol thinks we old people are not just as crazy over pretty clothes as we were when we were girls, she doesn't know the temperament of her own blood and kin. Carol, child, lead the way to those trunks immediately. My fingers fairly burn to turn the keys in those locks!""Really, Aunt Angie? Why, we shall be delighted. You should see the gowns Cousin Lois had made for the Durbar. They are simply regal!""Lois Winchester," said Aunt Angie, as they went up-stairs, "they tell me that you actually rode an elephant while you were in India!""I did, Cousin Angie," said Mrs. Winchester, imperturbably. "And what is more, I had my picture taken on one. You can hardly tell me from the elephant!"Now Cousin Lois so seldom jested that this sally met with the usual reception which non-jokers seem to expect, and the walls fairly reeled with the peals of laughter from the delighted kinfolk. But when they were all gathered in Carolina's room and the chairs were brought from all the other rooms to seat the guests, a hush fell upon the assemblage similar to that which falls upon Westminster Abbey when a funeral cortège arrives.Carolina was unlocking her Paris trunks!
CHAPTER XIII.
GUILDFORD
Carolina never forgot that morning. She was up at four o'clock, and, by a previous arrangement with old Aunt Calla, the cook, she had a cup of coffee at dawn. Aunt Calla brought it into the dining-room herself.
"'Scuse me, honey, fer waiting awn you myself, but do you reckon I could 'a' got dat no 'count fool, Lily, to git up en wait awn ennybody at dis time in de mawnin'? Not ef she knowed huh soul gwine be saved by doin' it. Dese yere chillen ob mine is too fine to wuk lake dere mammy does."
"But how did you manage to wake up so early?" asked Carolina.
"Lawd, honey, I'se done nussed sick chillen tell I sleeps wid one eye open from habit. En when I see what a pretty day it gwine turn out, en when I see dat en de fust five minutes you laid eyes awn him, you done cotched de beau what half de young ladies in Souf Calliny done set dere caps for, I says to myself, 'Ole 'ooman, ef you wants to see courtin' as is courtin', you jes' hump doze ole rheumatiz laigs ob yours, en get dar 'fore dey suspicion it demselves!' Law, Mis' Calline, how you is blushing! Ump! ump!"
"Here, Aunt Calla, take this for your trouble, and go and see if Mr. La Grange has come," cried Carolina.
"Why, Mis' Calline, dis yere will buy me a new bunnet! Thank you,ma'am. Yas'm, dah he is! I kin tell de way Mist' Moultrie rides wid my eyes shut. He rides lake one ob dese yere centipedes!"
Old Calla made it a point to see the riders mount. The sun was just coming into view, sending the mists rolling upwards in silvery clouds, when Carolina stepped out of the door. Her habit was of a bluish violet, so dark that it was almost black. It matched the colour of her eyes. Her hair caught the tinge of the sun and held it in its shining meshes.
Moultrie La Grange was waiting for her at the foot of the steps.
He held the mare Araby by the bridle, and leaned on the saddle of his own mare, Scintilla, shielding his eyes.
"Good morning,--Moultrie."
"Is that you, Miss Carolina? The sun, or something blinds me."
Carolina had heard it all many times before. Why, then, this difference? She pretended to herself that she did not know, but she did know, and was happy in the knowing. He was so handsome! She gloried in his looks. She felt as she had felt when she stood before the Hermes of Praxiteles, and wondered, if such glorious beauty should ever come to life, how she couldbearit!
Moultrie La Grange was not considered handsome by everybody. His beauty was too cold--too aloof--for the multitude to appreciate. But does the ordinary tourist go to Olympia?
Carolina had rather dreaded the four miles to Enterprise, if their way should lie over the dusty highway of yesterday. But she was not surprised; in fact, it seemed in keeping with what she had expected of him when he struck off through the woods, and she found herself, not only on the most perfect animal she had ever ridden, but in an enchanted forest.
Moultrie led the way both in conversation and in direction, and Carolina found herself glad to follow. His sarcasm, his wit, and the poetry of his nature were displayed without affectation. She kept looking at him eagerly, gladly, and yet expectantly. What was she waiting for? He discussed men but not deeds; amusements but not occupation; designs but not achievements. She wondered what he did with his time. He was strong, magnetic, gentle, charming. His voice was melodious. His manner full of the fineness of the old South.
Yet there was a vague lack in him somewhere. He just failed to come up to her ideal of what a man should be. Wherein lay this intangible lack?
Suddenly they emerged from the woods and struck the highway, and in another moment they were in Enterprise.
Not a breath of life was anywhere visible. Although it was six o'clock, not a wreath of smoke curled upward from any chimney. They rode through the sleeping town in silence.
"Now here," said Moultrie, "is a very remarkable town. It is, I may say, the only town in the world which is completely finished. Most towns grow, but not a nail has been driven in Enterprise, to my knowledge, since I was born. This town is perfectly satisfactory to its inhabitantsjust as it is!"
Against her will Carolina laughed. His tone was irresistible.
"Ought you to make fun of your own--your home town?" she asked.
"My more than that! Enterprise yields me my bread--sometimes."
Carolina looked at him. He pointed with his whip at the shed on the railroad platform.
"I am telegraph operator there six months in the year. I teach a country school in winter."
If he had struck her in the face with that same riding-whip, the red would not have flamed into Carolina's cheeks with more sudden fury. She dug her spurless heel into Araby's side, and the mare jumped with a swerve which would have unseated most riders. Moultrie looked at her in swift admiration, but she would not look at him. She struck her horse, and, with a mighty stride, Araby got the lead and kept it for a mile, even from Scintilla. Then the man overtook her and reached out and laid a hand on Carolina's bridle hand, and looked deep into her eyes and said:
"Why did you do that? Why did you try to escape from me? Don't you know that younever can?"
And all the time Carolina's heart was beating heavily against her side, and her brain was spinning out the question over and over, over and over:
"Oh, how can he? How can he be satisfied with that? How can he endure himself!"
It was not the lack of money, it was the lack of ambition in the man at her side, which stung her pride until it bled.
"Better go West on a cattle ranch," she thought, with bitter passion. "Better hunt wolves for the government. Better take the trail with the Indians than to lie down and rot in such a manner! Andsucha man!"
But suddenly a realization came to her of how marked her resentment would seem to him if he should discover its cause, and she hastened to play a part. But he was in no danger of discovering, because he did not even suspect. All the young fellows he knew, no matter how aristocratic their names, were at work for mere pittances at employments no self-respecting men would tolerate for a moment, because they offered no hope of betterment or promotion. Men with the talent to become lawyers, artists, bankers, and brokers were teaching school for less than Irish bricklayers get in large cities. Therefore, it could not be alleged that they were incapable of earning more or of occupying more dignified positions. It was simply the lack of ambition--the inertia of the South--which they could not shake off. It is the heritage of the Southern-born.
Presently Moultrie again pointed with his whip:
"Over yonder is Sunnymede, our place. Poor old Sunnymede! Mortgaged to its eyes, and with all its turpentine and timber gone! Guildford is intact. We just skirt the edge of Sunnymede riding to Guildford. And right where you see that tall blasted pine standing by itself is where I made one of my usual failures. I'm like the man with the ugly mule, who always backed. He said if he could only hitch that mule with his head to the wagon, he could get there. So, if my failures were only turned wrong side out, I'd be wealthy."
Carolina tried to smile. Moultrie continued:
"Once I thought I'd try to make some money, so I sold some timber to a Yankee firm who wanted fine cypress, and with the money I constructed a terrapin crawl. I knew how expensive terrapin are, and, if there is one thing I do know about, it is terrapin. So I canned a few prize-winners, and sent them to New York, and got word that they would take all I could send. Well, with that I began to feel like a Jay Gould. I could just see myself drinking champagne and going to the opera every night. So I immediately raised some mo' money in the same way,--out of the Yankees,--organized a small company, and built a canning factory. The lumber company was interested with me and advanced me all the money I wanted. So I got the thing well started, and left special word with the foreman, a cracker named Sharpe, to be sure and not can the claws, then I went off to New York to enjoy myself. I stayed until all my money was gone and then came home, intending to enjoy the wealth my foreman had built up in my absence. But what do you reckon that fool had done? Why, he had turned the work over to the niggers, and they had canned the terrapin just so,--claws, eyebrows, and all! Well, of course, the New York people went back on me,--wrote me the most impudent letters I ever got from anybody. It just showed me that Yankees can never hope to be considered gentlemen. Why, they acted as if I had cheated them! Said they had advertised largely on my samples, and had lost money and credit by my dishonest trickery. Just as ifIwere to blame! Then, of course, the Yankee lumbermen got mad, too, and foreclosed the mortgage and liquidated the company, and left me as poor as when I went in. I believe they even declare that I owe them money. Did you ever hear of such a piece of impudence?"
"Never," said Carolina, coolly, "if you mean on your part! You did everything that was wrong and nothing that was right. And the worst of it is that you are morally blind to your share of the blame."
"Why, Miss Carolina, what do you mean? I didn't go to lose their money. It hit me just as hard as it did them. I didn't make a cent."
"But the money that you lost wasn't yours to lose," cried Carolina, hotly.
"No, but I didn't do wrong intentionally. You can't blame a man for a mistake."
"There is such a thing as criminal negligence," said the girl, deliberately. "You had no business to trust an affair where your honour was pledged to an incompetent cracker foreman, and go to New York on the company's money, even if you did think you would earn the money to pay it back. How do you ever expect to pay it?"
"I don't expect to pay it at all, and I reckon those Yankees don't expect it, either."
"No, I don't suppose they do," said Carolina, bitterly.
"Well, if they are satisfied to lose it, and have forgotten all about it, would you bother to pay it back if you were in my place?"
"I would pay it back if I had to pay it out of my life insurance and be buried in a pine coffin in the potter's field! And as to those Northerners having forgotten it,--don't you believe it! They have simply laid it to what they call the to-be-expected dishonesty of the South when dealing with the North. The South calls it 'keeping their eyes peeled,' 'being wide-awake,' 'not being caught napping,' or catch phrases of that order. But the strictly honest business man calls it dishonest trickery, and mentally considers all Southerners inoculated with its poison. Do you know what Southern credit is worth in the North?"
Moultrie only looked sulky, but Carolina went on, spurred by her own despair and disillusionment.
"Well, you wouldn't be proud of it if you did! And just such a tolerant view of a thoroughly wrong transaction as you have thus divulged is responsible. Colonel Yancey was right. The South is heart-breaking!"
"Do you care so much?" asked Moultrie, softly.
Carolina lifted herself so proudly that the mare danced under her. She saw that she had gone too far. She also felt that error had mocked her. She had despaired of Moultrie's blind and false point of view when the Light of the world was at hand. Immediately her thought flew upwards.
But with Carolina absorbed in her work, and Moultrie puzzling over the sudden changes in her behaviour, it could not be said that the remainder of the ride was proving as pleasant as each had hoped. However, a perfect day, a fine animal, and the spirits of youth and enthusiasm are not to be ignored for long, and presently Carolina began to feel Guildford in the air. She looked inquiringly at Moultrie, and he answered briefly:
"In another mile." But there was a look in his eyes which made Carolina's heart beat, for it was the glance of comprehension which one soul flings to another in passing,--sometimes never to meet again, sometimes which leads to mating.
In another five minutes Moultrie raised his arm.
"There!"
Carolina reined in and Araby stood, tossing her slim head, raising her hoofs, champing her bit, and snuffing at the breeze which came to her red nostrils, laden with the breath of piny woods and balsam. Moultrie, sitting at parade rest on Scintilla and watching Carolina catch her breath almost with a sob, said to himself: "She feels just as that horse acts."
Carolina could find no words, nor did she dare trust herself. She was afraid she would break down. She lifted her gauntleted hand and the horses drew together and moved forward.
For more than a mile an avenue as wide as a boulevard led in a straight line, lined on each side by giant live-oaks. Ragged, unkempt shrubbery, the neglect of a lifetime, destroyed the perfectness of the avenue, but the majesty of those monarchs of trees could not be marred. The sun was only about an hour high, and the rays came slantingly across meadows whose very grasses spoke of fertility and richness. The glint of the river occasionally flashed across their vision, and between the bird-notes, in the absolute stillness, came the whispering of the distant tide.
At the end of the avenue lay the ruined stones of Guildford.
Carolina sprang down, flung her bridle-rein to Moultrie, and ran forward. She would not let him see her eyes. But she stumbled once, and by that he knew that she was crying. They were, however, tears of joy and thanksgiving. Guildford! Her foot was on its precious turf. These stones had once been her father's home. And she was free, young, strong, and empowered to build it up, a monument to the memory of her ancestors. Every word which Mrs. Goddard had prophesied had come true, and Carolina's first thought was a repetition of her words:
"See what Divine Love hath wrought!"
When she came back, instead of a tear-stained face, Moultrie saw one of such radiance that her beauty seemed dazzling. Where could be found such tints of colouring, such luminous depths in eyes, such tendrils of curling hair, such a flash of teeth, such vivid lips, and such a speaking smile? As he bent to receive her foot in his hand, he trembled through all his frame, and, as he felt her light spring to her mare's back, he would not have been at all surprised to discover that she had simply floated upward and vanished from his earthly sight to join her winged kindred. But, as she gathered up her reins and watched him mount, it was a very businesslike angel who spoke to him, and one whose brain, if the truth must be told, was full of turpentine.
"Now, let's explore," she said. "I have paid my respects to the shrine of my forefathers, now let's see what I have to sell my turpentine farmers."
"Your what?" asked the man, with the amused smile a man saves for the pretty woman who talks business.
"I am going to sell the orchard turpentine rights of Guildford to get money for building," she said, in a matter-of-fact tone.
"And I was thinking of you in a white robe playing a harp!" he said, with a groan.
"I often wear a white robe, and I play a harp quite commendably, considering that I have studied it since I was nine years old, but when I am working, I don't wear my wings. They get in my way."
Carolina by instinct rode to an elevation which commanded a view of the pine forests of Guildford.
"How much do I own?" she asked.
"As far as you can see in that direction. Over here your property runs into ours just where you see that broad gap."
"Why don't you rebuild Sunnymede?"
"No money!" he said, with a shrug.
"You have plenty of fallen timber and acres of stumpage to sell to the patent turpentine people."
"I don't know. I have never heard it discussed. We wouldn't sell to Yankees. We feel that we wouldn't have come to grief with the terrapin affair if we had been dealing with Southerners."
"Who are there to discuss? Who owns it with you?" asked Carolina, calmly ignoring the absurdity of his remarks.
"My brother and sister--" He paused abruptly, and then said: "You are sure to hear it from others, so I will tell you myself. The La Grange family skeleton shall be shown to you by no less a hand than my own! My brother has made a very--I hardly know what to call it. It is an unfortunate marriage, since no one knows who the girl is. When you saw me in New York, I was hoping to prevent their marriage, but it was too late. They had eloped and had been married immediately on arriving in New York. As soon as her aunt, with whom she lived, learned that Flower had eloped with my brother, she sent for me. She had been a great invalid, and the excitement had upset her so that when I arrived she looked as if she had not an hour to live. She caught me by the arm and said: 'Flower must not marry a La Grange. She is not my niece nor any relative of mine. Her mother was--' and with that her speech failed. She struggled as I never saw a being struggle to speak the one word more,--the one word needful,--and, failing, she fell back against her pillow--dead!"
Carolina's face showed her horror. He felt soothed by her understanding and went on, in a low, pained voice.
"It ruined my life. And it has ruined Winfield's."
"And the girl," said Carolina, in a tense voice, "Flower!"
"It has ruined hers. They are the most unhappy couple I ever saw. And more so since the baby came."
"It will all come right," declared Carolina, straightening herself. "You will discover that Flower is entitled to a name, and that your worst fears are incorrect."
"My worst fears--" began Moultrie. Then he stopped abruptly. "I cannot explain them to you," he said.
"I know what you mean. But remember that I, too, have seen Flower. I saw her that day, and I say to you that not one drop of negro blood flows in that girl's veins, and your brother's child is safe."
"You think so?" he exclaimed, moved by the earnestness of her voice and the calm conviction of her manner. Then he shook his head.
"It seems too good to be true."
"I can understand," she said, "the terrible strain you are all under, but, believe me, it will all come out right."
"They think the baby is bewitched,--that he has been voodooed,--if you know what that means. The negroes declare that an evil spirit can be seen moving around whatever spot the child inhabits."
"What utter nonsense!" cried Carolina. "I hope your brother has too much sense, too much religion, to encourage such a belief."
"My poor brother believes that the devil has marked him for his own."
"Does your brother believe in a devil?" asked Carolina.
"Why, don't you?" asked Moultrie, in a shocked tone.
"I was not aware that any enlightened person did nowadays," answered Carolina, with a lift of her chin.
The movement irritated her companion far more than her words, just as Carolina had intended it to.
There are some subjects which cannot be argued. They must be obliterated by a contempt which bites into one's self-love.
The mare saved the situation by a soft whinny. She turned her head expectantly, and, following her eyes, the riders saw the tall, lithe figure of a man making his way toward them through the underbrush. Moultrie gave vent to an exclamation.
"What is it?" asked Carolina.
"Oh, only a bad negro who haunts places where he has no business to. He is a perfect wonder with horses, and broke in that mare you are riding, who will follow him anywhere without a bridle, pushing her nose under his arm like any dog who thrusts a muzzle into your palm. He is always up to something. From present appearances, I should say that he had probably been bleeding your trees."
The negro, hearing voices, stopped, glanced in their direction, and promptly disappeared. Carolina only had time to notice that he was very black, but she followed him in thought, mentally denying dishonesty and declaring that harm could not come to her through error in any form.
She was struck, too, by the manner in which her sensitive, high-bred mare lifted her pretty head and looked after his retreating form, pawing the earth impatiently and sending out little snuffling neighs which were hardly more than bleatings. Surely, if a man had the power to call forth devoted love from such an animal, there must be much good in him!
"What makes you so quiet?" asked Moultrie, breaking in on her thought.
Carolina looked at him abruptly and decided her course of action.
"You have told me of the skeleton in your closet. Let me be equally frank and tell you of mine. I am a Christian Scientist."
"A what?"
"A Christian Scientist!"
"I never heard of one," said the young man, simply. "What is it?"
For the second time the girl's face flushed with a vicarious mortification.
"It is a new form of religion founded on a perfect belief in the life of Christ and a literal following of His commandments to His disciples, regardless of time," said Carolina, slowly.
Moultrie allowed a deep silence to follow her words. Then he drew a long breath.
"I think I should like that," he said. "Does it answer all your questions?"
"All! Every one of them!" she answered, with the almost too eager manner of the young believer in Christian Science. But an eagerness to impart good news and to relieve apparent distress should be readily forgiven by a self-loving humanity. Curiously, however, the most blatant ego is generally affronted by it.
"I was raised a Baptist," he said, reluctantly, "but I reckon I never was a very good one, for I never got any peace from it."
"My religion gives peace."
"And my prayers were never answered."
"My religion answers prayers."
"Not even when I lifted my heart to God in earnest pleading to spare my brother the unhappiness I felt sure would follow his marriage.HowI prayed to be in time to prevent it! God never heard me!"
"My religion holds the answer to that unanswered prayer."
"Not even when I prayed, lying on the floor all night, for the life of my father."
"My religion heals the sick."
He turned to her eagerly.
"Do you believe so implicitly in Christ's teachings that you can reproduce His miracles?" he cried.
"Christ never performed any miracles. He healed sickness through the simplest belief in the world,--or rather an understanding of His Father's power. That same privilege of understanding is open to me--and to you. You have the power within you at this very moment to heal any disease, if you only know where to look for the understanding to show you how to use it."
"Do you believe that?"
"I do better than believe it. I understand it. I know it."
"Is there a book which will tell me how to find it?"
"Yes."
"Will you order it for me, or tell me where to order it?"
"It is a very expensive book," said Carolina, hesitatingly, thinking of the telegraph-office.
"How expensive?"
"Three dollars."
"Do you call that expensive for what you promise it will do?"
When Carolina looked at him, he saw that she was smiling, but there were tears in her eyes. And he understood.
"You only said that to try me."
And she nodded. Her heart was too full of mingled emotions for her to speak. She had loved, despised, been proud of, and mortified for this man,--all with poignant, pungent vehemence,--during this three-hour ride, and at the last he had humbled and rebuked her by his childlike readiness to believe the greatest truth of the ages. She sat her horse, biting her lips to keep back the tears.
"Give me just one fact to go on," he begged.
"Do you read your Bible?"
"I used to, till I found I was getting not to believe in it. Then I stopped for my dead father's sake. He believed in it implicitly."
"Then you have read the fourteenth chapter of John?"
"I got fifty cents when I was twelve years old for learning it by heart."
"Then run it over in your own mind until you come to the twelfth verse. When you get to that, say it aloud."
"'Verily, verily I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.'"
He did not glance her way again, which Carolina noticed with gratitude. It showed that he was not accepting it for her sake. Presently he spoke again.
"Did you yourself ever heal any one?"
"Through my understanding of Divine Love, I healed Gladys Yancey," she said, quietly.
The man's face flushed with his earnestness. He lifted his hat and rode bareheaded.
"Do you remember what the father of the dumb child said? 'Lord, I believe! Help thou mine unbelief!'"
When they rode in at the gates of Whitehall, Moultrie was astonished at the radiance of the girl's countenance. She seemed transfigured by love. Moultrie's ready belief had glorified her, and for the second time her grateful thought ascended in the words, "See what Divine Love hath wrought!"
CHAPTER XIV.
KINFOLK
Carolina took her writing materials out on the back porch. There was not a small table in the house whose legs did not wabble, so she propped the best of them with chips from Aunt Calla's wood-pile and wrote until Aunt Calla could stand it no longer.
"Miss Calline, honey," she said, "you writes so fas' wid yo' fingahs, would you min' ef I brung de aigplant out here to peel it en watch you? I won't make no fuss."
"Certainly not, Aunt Calla. I'd be glad to have you."
"Hum! hum! You sho have got pretty mannahs, Miss Calline. Youse got de mannahs ob de ole ladies of de South. You don't see 'em now'days wid de young ladies. De young people got de po'est mannahs I ebber did see,--screechin' and hollerin' to each odder 'cross de street, or from one eend ob de house to de other. Ole mahster would 'a' lammed his chillen ef dey'd cut up sech capers en his time! But Miss Peachie,--she's got de La Grange mannahs. She's Mist' Moultrie's sistah. Dey calls her 'Peachie' caze she's got such pretty red in huh cheeks,--lake yores. Most ladies down in dese pahts is too white to suit me. I lakes 'em pinky and pretty."
"Thank you, Aunt Calla!" cried Carolina. "I wonder if I couldn't get Cousin Lois to give you that black grenadine you thought was so pretty yesterday."
Aunt Calla laid down her knife.
"Miss Calline, is you foolin' me?"
"No, Calla, I am not."
"Dish yere grenadier dress I mean is lined wid black silk!"
"I know it."
"En you gwine gib dat to me?"
"I am thinking of it."
"Well, glory be! Ef you does dat, Ise gwine jine de chutch all over ag'in, en I reckon I'll jine de Babtis' dish yere time. Dey's mo' style to de Babtis' den to de Meth'diss. Ise 'bleeged to live up to dat silk linin'!"
The old woman's face took on a worried look.
"I don' keer!" she said aloud. "I don' keer! Nemmine, Miss Calline! You wouldn' laff so ef you knew what Ise studyin' 'bout doin'. Ise been savin' my money foh two years now to get a gravestone foh my fou'th husban' what done died three yeahs ago. He baiged me wid his las' breath to bury him stylish, en I promus him I would. He was all for style. Do you know, Miss Calline, dat man would 'a' gone hongry rathah dan turn his meat ovah awn de fiah. He was de mos' dudish man I ebber see. But I can't he'p it. Ise gwine take dat grave-stone money and hab dat dress made to fit me good en stylish. En I bet Miss Peachie will charge me eve'y cent I got to do it!"
"Who?" demanded Carolina.
"Miss Peachie La Grange. She does all my sewin' foh me, an' foh Lily, too. Dat's de way she mek huh money. Yas,ma'am. Sewin' foh niggahs!"
Aunt Calla paused with her mouth open, for Carolina, regardless of what anybody thought, sprang up, overturning her table, spilling her ink over Aunt Calla's clean porch floor, and scattering her papers to the four winds of heaven.
"Ump! So dat's de way de win' blows! Well, ef she ain't a Lee sho nuff. She's got de pride of huh ole gran'dad, en mo', too. She looked at me ez if she'd lake to kill me. I wondah ef I'll evah git dat dress now!"
She sent Lily to reconnoitre.
"Jes' creep up en see what she's doin'. De keyhole in huh room is busted, en you kin see de whole room thoo it. Jis' go en peek. But ef you let huh ketch you, she'll know who sont you, en she'll be so mad, I nevah will git dat dress. Den I'll bust yo' yallah face open wid de i'nin' boa'd!"
"She ain't cryin' nor nothin'!" cried Lily, bursting into the kitchen twenty minutes later. "She's settin' in huh rockin'-cheer, wid a open book awn huh lap, en huh eyes is shut en huh lips a-movin', lake she's studyin'."
"T'ank de Lawd!" observed Calla. "Somehow er odder, Ise gwine git hole ob a fryin' chicken foh huh. You tell Jake I wants tuh see him dis evenin'. Run, Lily! See who's dat drivin' in outen de big road!"
"Hit's de La Granges! De whole kit en bilin' ob 'em. Dey's done borried de Barnwells' double ca'y-all."
Fortunately, there were many rocking-chairs at Whitehall, and, although many of them were war veterans, all were pressed into service the day the La Granges came to call. Miss Sue and Miss Sallie Yancey glanced at each other expressively when they saw that even Flower, Mrs. Winfield La Grange, was one of the party. It was the first time that she had ever been openly recognized by the La Grange family, except in name, and no one knew that it was by Moultrie's express wish that Peachie had asked her to go with them. Thus, indirectly, Carolina was at the bottom of it, after all.
Peachie was pretty, but her delicate prettiness was scarcely noticeable when Carolina was in the room. Aunt Angie La Grange, Cousin Élise La Grange, Cousin Rose Manigault, with her little girl Corinne, who had come to play with Gladys and Emmeline Yancey,--all these insisted on claiming kin with Mrs. Winchester and Carolina, and, as Aunt Angie and Cousin Lois had known each other in their girlhood, and had spent much time at Guildford and Sunnymede, it was easy for them to fall into the old way of claiming cousinship, even when a slender excuse was called upon to serve.
The conversation was very gay and kindly, but, under cover of its universality, Carolina managed to seat herself next to Flower La Grange, whose pale cheeks and frightened eyes proclaimed how much of a stranger she was to such scenes. When Carolina called her "Cousin Flower," the flush on her face and the look of passionate gratitude in her eyes gave Carolina ample evidence that any kindness she might choose to bestow here would be appreciated beyond reason.
At first Flower was constrained and answered in monosyllables, but when Carolina adroitly mentioned the baby, Flower's whole manner thawed, and, in her eagerness, she poured forth a stream of rapturous talk which caused the others to look at her in a chilling surprise. But Flower's back was toward her haughty relatives, and only Carolina caught the glances,--Carolina, who calmly ignored them.
"You must come to see my baby!" cried Flower, impulsively. "He is so dear! And so smart! You can't imagine how hard it is to keep him asleep. He hears every sound and wants to be up all the time."
"I suppose he notices everything, doesn't he?"
"No-o, I can't say that he does. He likes things that make a noise. He doesn't care much for looks. If you hold a rattle right up before his eyes, he won't pay any attention to it. But, if you shake it, he smiles and coos and reaches out for it. Oh, he is a regular boy for noise!"
As Flower said this upon a moment of comparative silence, Carolina noticed that Aunt Angie grew rather pale and said:
"I haven't seen your baby for several months, Flower. May I come to see him to-morrow?"
"Oh, I should be so glad if you would, Mrs.--"
"Call me mother, child," said the older woman, looking compassionately at her daughter-in-law.
Flower flushed as delicately as a wild rose, and looked at Carolina, as if wondering if she had noticed this sudden access of cordiality. But to Carolina, a stranger, it seemed perfectly natural, and she rather hurriedly resumed her conversation with Flower, because she had the uneasy consciousness that Miss Sue and Aunt Angie, on the other side of the room, were talking about her. Fragments of their conversation floated over to her in the pauses of her talk with Flower.
"She thinks nothing of sending off ten or a dozen telegrams a day--"
"--she'll wear herself out--"
"--it can't last long. Moultrie says she shows a wonderful head for--"
"--and she never gets tired. I never saw such power of concentration--"
"--when I was a girl--"
"--writes--writes--writes the longest letters, and if you could see her mail!"
"--the very prettiest girl I ever saw,--a perfect beauty, Moultrie thinks."
Carolina's little ears burned so scarlet that she got up and took Peachie and Flower out into the garden, and, as the three girls went down the steps, a perfect babel of voices arose in the parlour. Plainly Carolina's going had loosened their tongues. They drew their chairs around Mrs. Winchester's, and, although the day was cool, they gave her the warmest half-hour she could remember since she left Bombay. They could understand and excuse every feminine vagary, from stealing another woman's lover to coaxing a man to spend more than he could afford, or idling away every moment of a day over novels or embroidery, but for a beauty, a belle, a toast, a girl who had been presented at three courts before she was twenty, to come down to South Carolina and live on horseback or in a buggy, meeting men by appointment and understanding long columns of figures, sending and receiving cipher telegrams, and in all this aided and abetted by no less exclusive and particular a chaperon than Cousin Lois Winchester, Rhett Winchester's widow, herself related to the Lees,--this was a little more than they could comprehend. Nor could Miss Sue Yancey nor Miss Sallie (Mrs. Pringle), although they were in the same house with her, throw any light on the subject or help them in any way. Carolina was plainly a puzzle to the La Granges, at least, and when, that same afternoon, Carolina and the two girls in the garden saw another carryall and a buggy drive in at Whitehall, containing her father's relatives, the Lees, she frankly said that she would stay out a little longer and give them a chance to talk her over before she went in to meet them.
Peachie laughed at Carolina's high colour when she said this.
"You mustn't get mad, Cousin Carol, because you are talked about. We talk about everybody,--it's all we have to do in the country. But you ought to be used to it. You are such a little beauty, you must have been talked about all your life."
"Nonsense, Peachie!" cried Carolina, blushing. "I am not half as good-looking as you and Flower. But the way you all watch me here makes me feel as if I were a strange kind of a beetle under a powerful microscope, at the other end of which there was always a curious human eye."
"Oh, Cousin Carol, you do say such quayah things!" cried Peachie, laughing.
"We ought to go in, I think," said Carolina. But at her words the two girls, as if nerving themselves for an ordeal planned beforehand, looked at each other, and then Peachie, in evident embarrassment, said:
"Cousin Carol, I want to ask you something, and I don't want you to be offended or to think that we have no manners, but--"
"Go on, Peachie, dear. Ask anything you like. You won't offend me. Remember that we are all cousins down here."
"I know, you dear! But maybe when you know what I want,--but you see, we never get a chance to see any of the styles--"
"Do you want to see my clothes?" cried Carolina. "You shall see every rag I possess, you dear children! Don't I know how awful it must be never to know what they are wearing at Church Parade. Five trunks came yesterday that haven't even been unpacked. They are just as they were packed by a frisky little Frenchman in Paris, and, as they were sent after me, they were detained in the custom-house, and, before I could get them out, I was hurt. While I was in bed, my brother got them out of the custom-house and took them tohishouse, where I forgot all about them until I was preparing to come here. Then I thought of clothes! And I also thought I might find some pretty girls down here among my relatives who would like to see the Real Thing just as it comes from the hands of the Paris couturières,--so there you are!"
"Oh, Carolina Lee!" shrieked Peachie, softly. "What a sweet thing you are! Just think, Flower, Paris clothes!"
"And better still, Vienna clothes!" said Carolina, laughing.
"You said you were hurt, Cousin Carol," said Flower, in her soft little voice. "How were you injured?"
"I was thrown from my horse, Flower, dear, and my hip was broken. I was in bed for months with it."
"But you were cured," said Flower. "I never heard of a broken hip that didn't leave a limp. There must be mighty fine doctors in New York."
"There are!" said Carolina, softly. Then she turned suddenly and led the way to the house, the girls eagerly following.
It will be difficult and not at all to the point to try to learn the relationship of the Lees and La Granges to Carolina and to each other. Aunt Angie La Grange was Moultrie's, Winfield's, and Peachie's mother. Rose Manigault was Aunt Angie's married sister, and Élise an unmarried one.
Of the Lees, there was Aunt Evelyn Lee, Carolina's own maiden aunt. Aunt Isabel Fitzhugh, her married aunt, with her two daughters, Eppie and Marie. Uncle Gordon Fitzhugh, Aunt Isabel's husband, and a bachelor cousin of Carolina's, De Courcey Lee, were the ones who had come in the buggy with the two little Fitzhugh boys, Teddy and Bob.
The children could not be induced to leave the parlour until they had seen their new cousin, they had heard so much of her beauty from Moultrie, so that, when Carolina entered and was introduced to her admiring relatives, none was more admiring than the children. Indeed, Bob Fitzhugh announced to his father, as they were driving home that evening, that he was going to marry Cousin Carol. He said that he had already asked her, and that she had told him that she was ten years older than he was, but that, if he still wanted her when he was twenty-one and she hadn't married any one in the meantime, she would marry him.
"You couldn't do better, son," said his father, nudging De Courcey, "and I commend your promptness, for, as Carolina is the prettiest--the very prettiest little woman I ever saw, the other boys will doubtless get after her, and it's just as well to have filed your petition beforehand."
Indeed the verdict on Carolina was universally favourable. Her relatives were familiar with her photographs, and were proud of the accounts which at intervals had filtered home to them through letters and newspapers, but the girl's beauty of colouring had so far outshone their expectations, and her exquisite modesty had so captivated them that they annexed her bodily, and quoted her and praised and flattered her until she hardly knew where to turn. She won the Fitzhugh hearts by her devotion to Teddy, the seven-year-old boy, who could not speak an intelligible word on account of a cleft palate. She took him with her on the sofa and talked to him and encouraged him to try to answer, until the mother, though her soul was filled with the most passionate gratitude, unselfishly called the boy away, saying, in a hurried aside to Carolina:
"Thank you, and God bless you, my darling girl, for trying to help my baby boy, but you owe your attention to the grown people, who, some of them, have driven twenty miles to see your sweet face. Some day, Carolina, I want you to come and spend a week with us, and tell me about the best doctor to send the child to. You must know all about such things, coming from New York."
She won the heart of her bachelor cousin, a man of nearly sixty, by allowing him to lead her to a sofa and question her about her father, his last days in London, and of how she had inherited her love for Guildford.
"For it is an inheritance, Carolina, my dear. Your father loved the place as not one of us do who have stayed near it."
"Yes, Cousin De Courcey, I think you are right. Daddy used to dream of it."
"Did he ever tell you of the loss of the family silver?"
"Yes, he said it was lost during the war."
"Did he never tell you of his suspicions concerning it?"
"No, because I don't think he had any."
"Pardon me for disagreeing with you, my dear, but in letters to me he has stated it. You know our family silver included many historical pieces,--gifts from great men, who had been guests at Guildford,--besides all that the family had inherited on both sides for generations. Many of these pieces were engraved and inscribed, and, unless they were melted at once, could have been traced. Your grandfather and your father, being the only ones fortunate enough to have increased their fortunes, undertook to search the world over for traces of this silver, but, as not so much as a teaspoon of it was ever found, we think it is still buried somewhere near here,--possibly on the estate. Aunt 'Polyte, your father's black mammy, and her husband buried it, and to the day of their death they swore it was not stolen by the Yankees, for, when they missed it, there were no Federal troops within fifty miles. They both declared that some one traced them in their frequent pilgrimages to its hiding-place to ascertain that it was intact, and that the Lee family will yet come into its own. As you seem to be our good angel, it will probably be you who will find it. Doesn't something tell you that you will?"
"Yes, something tells me that it is not lost," said Carolina, with grave eyes. "I came into the possession of Guildford so wonderfully, perhaps I shall find the Lee silver by the same means."
Just then Mrs. Pringle hurried into the room, saying hospitably:
"Now listen to me, good people. You all don't come to Whitehall so often that we don't feel the honour, and now that you are here, you must stay to supper. Don't say a word! I'll tell Jake to hitch up and go after Moultrie and Winfield, and there's a full moon to-night, so you won't have any trouble in getting home. Élise, if you are too big a coward to drive twenty miles after dark, you can stay here all night. Flower, do you trust your nurse to stay with the baby?"
"Oh, yes, indeed, thank you, Miss Sallie. I'll just write a note to Winfield and send it by Jake, if I may, telling him to see that Aunt Tempy and the baby are all right before he starts, then I won't be a bit uneasy."
The La Granges had never heard their unpopular kinswoman make so long a speech before, and, as they listened to it, with critical, if not hostile ears, they were forced to admit that she exhibited both spirit and breeding, and her voice had a curious low-toned dignity which indicated an inherited power.
Whitehall had not been famous for its hospitality since the death of Elliott Pringle, Miss Sallie's husband. During his lifetime they had kept open house, and Miss Sallie was the soul of hospitality. She would dearly have loved to continue his policy and the prestige of Whitehall, but her sister, Sue Yancey, was, in popular parlance, called "the stingiest old maid in the State of Georgia," and when she came to live with her widowed sister she watched the expenditures at Whitehall, until nobody who ever dined there had enough to eat. There was a story going around that the reason she lost the only beau she ever had, was because once when he was going on a journey she asked him to take out an accident insurance policy, and when he told her that he was all alone in the world and that no one would be benefited by his death, she told him to send the ticket to her. Rumour said that he sent the ticket, but that he never came back to Sue.
Sue either cared nothing for the good opinion of other people or she made the mistake of underestimating her friends' intelligence, for she carried her thrift with a high hand. At Sunday-school picnics it was no uncommon sight for the neighbours to see Miss Sue Yancey going around to the different tables gathering all that was edible into her basket to take home with her. And that these scraps subsequently appeared on the table at Whitehall often led to high words between the sisters; but in the end it always happened that Sue conquered, because Mrs. Pringle dreaded her sister's bitter tongue and ungoverned temper.
Yet Sue often complained that she felt so alone in the world because no one understood her.
"Don't stay," whispered Gordon Fitzhugh, in his wife's ear. "Sue never gives me enough sugar in my tea!"
Carolina could not help overhearing. She looked up quickly and laughed.
"Are you getting thin?" he whispered. "Does Sue give you as hash for supper the beef the soup is made from?"
"I think Miss Sallie is ordering while we are here," said Carolina, loyally. She would not tell her Uncle Fitzhugh that one morning when Lily was taking Cousin Lois's breakfast up to her, when her asthma was bad, that Sue had waylaid Lily in the hall and had taken the extra butter ball off the tray and carried it back to the dining-room in triumph.
"I admire economy," said Uncle Fitzhugh. "Sue's ancestors were French, but, in her case, French thrift has degenerated into American meanness."
"You stay," said Carolina, dimpling, "and I'll see that you get all the sugar you want, if I have to ask for it myself!"
"Then I'll stay," chuckled Uncle Fitzhugh, and he beckoned to De Courcey to come out into the garden and have a smoke--in reality to gossip.
Hardly were the gentlemen out of sight when Peachie said, excitedly:
"Mamma, do beg them all to excuse Cousin Carol, Flower, and me! Carol has promised to show us her Paris clothes--five trunks full of them!" Her voice rose to a little shriek of ecstasy, which was echoed in various keys all over the room. Every face took on a look of intense excitement and anticipation.
"Excuse you!" cried Aunt Angie La Grange. "We shall do no such thing. If Carol thinks we old people are not just as crazy over pretty clothes as we were when we were girls, she doesn't know the temperament of her own blood and kin. Carol, child, lead the way to those trunks immediately. My fingers fairly burn to turn the keys in those locks!"
"Really, Aunt Angie? Why, we shall be delighted. You should see the gowns Cousin Lois had made for the Durbar. They are simply regal!"
"Lois Winchester," said Aunt Angie, as they went up-stairs, "they tell me that you actually rode an elephant while you were in India!"
"I did, Cousin Angie," said Mrs. Winchester, imperturbably. "And what is more, I had my picture taken on one. You can hardly tell me from the elephant!"
Now Cousin Lois so seldom jested that this sally met with the usual reception which non-jokers seem to expect, and the walls fairly reeled with the peals of laughter from the delighted kinfolk. But when they were all gathered in Carolina's room and the chairs were brought from all the other rooms to seat the guests, a hush fell upon the assemblage similar to that which falls upon Westminster Abbey when a funeral cortège arrives.
Carolina was unlocking her Paris trunks!