When the two entered the supper-room together a little commotion was caused by their arrival. At first the supple young figure in violet and gray was not recognized. It was not the figure people had been used to, it seemed so tall and slenderly round. The reddish-brown hair was combed high and made into soft puffs; it made the pretty head seem more delicately shaped, and showed how white and graceful the back of the slender neck was. It was several minutes before the problem was solved. Then a sharp young woman exclaimed,sotto voce:
"It's the little country-girl, in new clothes—in clothes that fit. Would you believe it?"
"Don't look at your plate so steadily," whispered Miss Ferrol. "Lean back and fan yourself as if you did not hear. You must never show that you hear things."
"I shall be obliged to give her a few hints now and then," she had said to herself beforehand. "But I feel sure when she once catches the cue she will take it."
It really seemed as if she did, too. She had looked at herself long and steadily after she had been dressed, and when she turned away from the glass she held her head a trifle more erect, and her cheeks had reddened. Perhaps what she had recognized in the reflection she had seen had taught her a lesson. But she said nothing. In a few days Olivia herself was surprised at the progress she had made. Sanguine as she was, she had not been quite prepared for the change which had taken place in her. She had felt sure it would be necessary to teach her to control her emotions, but suddenly she seemed to have learned to control them without being told to do so; she was no longer demonstrative of her affection, she no longer asked innocent questions, nor did she ever speak of her family. Her reserve was puzzling to Olivia.
"You are very clever," she said to her one day, the words breaking from her in spite of herself, after she had sat regarding her in silence for a few minutes. "You are even cleverer than I thought you were, Louise."
"Was that very clever?" the girl asked.
"Yes, it was," Olivia answered, "but not so clever as you are proving yourself."
But Louisiana did not smile or blush, as she had expected she would. She sat very quietly, showing neither pleasure nor shyness, and seeming for a moment or so to be absorbed in thought.
In the evening when the stages came in they were sitting on the front gallery together. As the old rattletraps bumped and swung themselves up the gravel drive, Olivia bent forward to obtain a better view of the passengers.
"He ought to be among them," she said.
Louisiana laid her hand on her arm.
"Who is that sitting with the driver?" she asked, as the second vehicle passed them. "Isn't that——"
"To be sure it is!" exclaimed Miss Ferrol.
She would have left her seat, but she found herself detained. Her companion had grasped her wrist.
"Wait a minute!" she said. "Don't leave me! Oh—I wish I had not done it!"
Miss Ferrol turned and stared at her in amazement.
She spoke in her old, uncontrolled, childish fashion. She was pale, and her eyes were dilated.
"What is the matter?" said Miss Ferrol, hurriedly, when she found her voice. "Is it that you really don't like the idea? If you don't, there is no need of our carrying it out. It was only nonsense—I beg your pardon for not seeing that it disturbed you. Perhaps, after all, it was very bad taste in me——"
But she was not allowed to finish her sentence. As suddenly as it had altered before, Louisiana's expression altered again. She rose to her feet with a strange little smile. She looked into Miss Ferrol's astonished face steadily and calmly.
"Your brother has seen you and is coming toward us," she said. "I will leave you. We shall see each other again at supper."
And with a little bow she moved away with an air of composure which left her instructress stunned. She could scarcely recover her equilibrium sufficiently to greet her brother decently when he reached her side. She had never been so thoroughly at sea in her life.
After she had gone to her room that night, her brother came and knocked at the door.
When she opened it and let him in he walked to a chair and threw himself into it, wearing a rather excited look.
"Olivia," he began at once, "what a bewildering girl!"
Olivia sat down opposite to him, with a composed smile.
"Miss Rogers, of course?" she said.
"Of course," he echoed. And then, after a pause of two or three seconds, he added, in the tone he had used before: "What a delightfully mysterious girl!"
"Mysterious!" repeated Olivia.
"There is no other word for it! She has such an adorable face, she looks so young, and she says so little." And then, with serious delight, he added: "It is a new type!"
Olivia began to laugh.
"Why are you laughing?" he demanded.
"Because I was so sure you would say that," she answered. "I was waiting for it."
"But it is true," he replied, quite vehemently. "I never saw anything like her before. I look at her great soft eyes and I catch glimpses of expression which don't seem to belong to the rest of her. When I see her eyes I could fancy for a moment that she had been brought up in a convent or had lived a very simple, isolated life, but when she speaks and moves I am bewildered. I want to hear her talk, but she says so little. She does not even dance. I suppose her relatives are serious people. I dare say you have not heard much of them from her. Her reserve is so extraordinary in a girl. I wonder how old she is?"
"Nineteen, I think."
"I thought so. I never saw anything prettier than her quiet way when I asked her to dance with me. She said, simply, 'I do not dance. I have never learned.' It was as if she had never thought of it as being an unusual thing."
He talked of her all the time he remained in the room. Olivia had never seen him so interested before.
"The fascination is that she seems to be two creatures at once," he said. "And one of them is stronger than the other and will break out and reveal itself one day. I begin by feeling I do not understand her, and that is the most interesting of all beginnings, I long to discover which of the two creatures is the real one."
When he was going away he stopped suddenly to say:
"How was it you never mentioned her in your letters? I can't understand that."
"I wanted you to see her for yourself," Olivia answered. "I thought I would wait."
"Well," he said, after thinking a moment, "I am glad, after all, that you did."
From the day of his arrival a new life began for Louisiana. She was no longer an obscure and unconsidered young person. Suddenly, and for the first time in her life, she found herself vested with a marvellous power. It was a power girls of a different class from her own are vested with from the beginning of their lives. They are used to it and regard it as their birthright. Louisiana was not used to it. There had been nothing like it attending her position as "that purty gal o' Rogerses." She was accustomed to the admiration of men she was indifferent to—men who wore short-waisted blue-jean coats, and turned upon their elbows to stare at her as she sat in the little white frame church. After making an effort to cultivate her acquaintance, they generally went away disconcerted. "She's mighty still," they said. "She haint got nothin' to say. Seems like thar aint much to her—but she's powerful purty though."
This was nothing like her present experience. She began slowly to realize that she was a little like a young queen now. Here was a man such as she had never spoken to before, who was always ready to endeavor to his utmost to please her: who, without any tendency toward sentimental nonsense, was plainly the happier for her presence and favor. What could be more assiduous and gallant than the every-day behavior of the well-bred, thoroughly experienced young man of the period toward the young beauty who for the moment reigns over his fancy! It need only be over his fancy; there is no necessity that the impression should be any deeper. His suavity, his chivalric air, his ready wit in her service, are all that could be desired.
When Louisiana awakened to the fact that all this homage was rendered to her as being only the natural result of her girlish beauty—as if it was the simplest thing in the world, and a state of affairs which must have existed from the first—she experienced a sense of terror. Just at the very first she would have been glad to escape from it and sink into her old obscurity.
"It does not belong to me," she said to herself. "It belongs to some one else—to the girl he thinks I am. I am not that girl, though; I will remember that."
But in a few days she calmed down. She told herself that she always did remember, but she ceased to feel frightened and was more at ease. She never talked very much, but she became more familiar with the subjects she heard discussed. One morning she went to Olivia's room and asked her for the address of a bookseller.
"I want to send for some books and—and magazines," she said, confusedly. "I wish you—if you would tell me what to send for. Father will give me the money if I ask him for it."
Olivia sat down and made a list. It was along list, comprising the best periodicals of the day and several standard books.
When she handed it to her she regarded her with curiosity.
"You mean to read them all?" she asked.
"Isn't it time that I should?" replied her pupil.
"Well—it is a good plan," returned Olivia, rather absently.
Truth to tell, she was more puzzled every day. She had begun to be quite sure that something had happened. It seemed as if a slight coldness existed between herself and her whilom adorer. The simplicity of her enthusiasm was gone. Her affection had changed as her outward bearing. It was a better regulated and less noticeable emotion. Once or twice Olivia fancied she had seen the girl looking at her even sadly, as if she felt, for the moment, a sense of some loss.
"Perhaps it was very clumsy in me," she used to say to herself. "Perhaps I don't understand her, after all."
But she could not help looking on with interest. She had never before seen Laurence enjoy himself so thoroughly. He had been working very hard during the past year, and was ready for his holiday. He found the utter idleness, which was the chief feature of the place, a good thing. There was no town or village within twenty miles, newspapers were a day or two old when they arrived, there were very few books to be found, and there was absolutely no excitement. At night the band brayed in the empty-looking ball-room, and a few very young couples danced, in a desultory fashion and without any ceremony. The primitive, domesticated slowness of the place was charming. Most of the guests had come from the far South at the beginning of the season and would remain until the close of it; so they had had time to become familiar with each other and to throw aside restraint.
"There is nothing to distract one," Ferrol said, "nothing to rouse one, nothing to inspire one—nothing! It is delicious! Why didn't I know of it before?"
He had plenty of time to study his sister's friend. She rode and walked with him and Olivia when they made their excursions, she listened while he read aloud to them as he lay on the grass in a quiet corner of the grounds. He thought her natural reserve held her from expressing her opinion on what he read very freely; it certainly did not occur to him that she was beginning her literary education under his guidance. He could see that the things which pleased him most were not lost upon her. Her face told him that. One moonlight night, as they sat on an upper gallery, he began to speak of the novelty of the aspect of the country as it presented itself to an outsider who saw it for the first time.
"It is a new life, and a new people," he said. "And, by the way, Olivia, where is the new species of young woman I was to see—the daughter of the people who does not belong to her sphere?"
He turned to Louisiana.
"Have you ever seen her?" he asked. "I must confess to a dubiousness on the subject."
Before he could add another word Louisiana turned upon him. He could see her face clearly in the moonlight. It was white, and her eyes were dilated and full of fire.
"Why do you speak in that way?" she cried. "As if—as if such people were so far beneath you. What right have you——"
She stopped suddenly. Laurence Ferrol was gazing at her in amazement. She rose from her seat, trembling.
"I will go away a little," she said. "I beg your pardon—and Miss Ferrol's."
She turned her back upon them and went away. Ferrol sat holding her little round, white-feather fan helplessly, and staring after her until she disappeared.
It was several seconds before the silence was broken. It was he who broke it.
"I don't know what it means," he said, in a low voice. "I don't know what I have done!"
In a little while he got up and began to roam aimlessly about the gallery. He strolled from one end to the other with his hands thrust in his coat pockets. Olivia, who had remained seated, knew that he was waiting in hopes that Louisiana would return. He had been walking to and fro, looking as miserable as possible, for about half an hour, when at last she saw him pause and turn half round before the open door of an upper corridor leading out upon the verandah. A black figure stood revealed against the inside light. It was Louisiana, and, after hesitating a moment, she moved slowly forward.
She had not recovered her color, but her manner was perfectly quiet.
"I am glad you did not go away," she said.
Ferrol had only stood still at first, waiting her pleasure, but the instant she spoke he made a quick step toward her.
"I should have felt it a very hard thing not to have seen you again before I slept," he said.
She made no reply, and they walked together in silence until they reached the opposite end of the gallery.
"Miss Ferrol has gone in," she said then.
He turned to look and saw that such was the case. Suddenly, for some reason best known to herself, Olivia had disappeared from the scene.
Louisiana leaned against one of the slender, supporting pillars of the gallery. She did not look at Ferrol, but at the blackness of the mountains rising before them. Ferrol could not look away from her.
"If you had not come out again," he said, after a pause, "I think I should have remained here, baying at the moon, all night."
Then, as she made no reply, he began to pour himself forth quite recklessly.
"I cannot quite understand how I hurt you," he said. "It seemed to me that I must have hurt you, but even while I don't understand, there are no words abject enough to express what I feel now and have felt during the last half hour. If I only dared ask you to tell me——"
She stopped him.
"I can't tell you," she said. "But it is not your fault—it is nothing you could have understood—it is my fault—all my fault, and—I deserve it."
He was terribly discouraged.
"I am bewildered," he said. "I am very unhappy."
She turned her pretty, pale face round to him swiftly.
"It is not you who need be unhappy," she exclaimed. "It is I!"
The next instant she had checked herself again, just as she had done before.
"Let us talk of something else," she said, coldly.
"It will not be easy for me to do so," he answered, "but I will try."
Before Olivia went to bed she had a visit from her.
She received her with some embarrassment, it must be confessed. Day by day she felt less at ease with her and more deeply self-convicted of some blundering,—which, to a young woman of her temperament, was a sharp penalty.
Louisiana would not sit down. She revealed her purpose in coming at once.
"I want to ask you to make me a promise," she said, "and I want to ask your pardon."
"Don't do that," said Olivia.
"I want you to promise that you will not tell your brother the truth until you have left here and are at home. I shall go away very soon. I am tired of what I have been doing. It is different from what you meant it to be. But you must promise that if you stay after I have gone—as of course you will—you will not tell him. My home is only a few miles away. You might be tempted, after thinking it over, to come and see me—and I should not like it. I want it all to stop here—I mean my part of it. I don't want to know the rest."
Olivia had never felt so helpless in her life. She had neither self-poise, nor tact, nor any other daring quality left.
"I wish," she faltered, gazing at the girl quite pathetically, "I wish we had never begun it."
"So do I," said Louisiana. "Do you promise?"
"Y-yes. I would promise anything. I—I have hurt your feelings," she confessed, in an outbreak.
She was destined to receive a fresh shock. All at once the girl was metamorphosed again. It was her old ignorant, sweet, simple self who stood there, with trembling lips and dilated eyes.
"Yes, you have!" she cried. "Yes, you have!"
And she burst into tears and turned about and ran out of the room.
The morning after, Ferrol heard an announcement which came upon him like a clap of thunder.
After breakfast, as they walked about the grounds, Olivia, who had seemed to be in an abstracted mood, said, without any preface:
"Miss Rogers returns home to-morrow."
Laurence stopped short in the middle of the path.
"To-morrow!" he exclaimed. "Oh, no."
He glanced across at Louisiana with an anxious face.
"Yes," she said, "I am going home."
"To New York?"
"I do not live in New York."
She spoke quite simply, but the words were a shock to him. They embarrassed him. There was no coldness in her manner, no displeasure in her tone, but, of course, he understood that it would be worse than tactless to inquire further. Was it possible that she did not care that he should know where she lived? There seemed no other construction to be placed upon her words. He flushed a little, and for a few minutes looked rather gloomy, though he quickly recovered himself afterward and changed the subject with creditable readiness.
"Did not you tell me she lived in New York?" he asked Olivia, the first time they were alone together.
"No," Olivia answered, a trifle sharply. "Why New York, more than another place?"
"For no reason whatever,—really," he returned, more bewildered than ever. "There was no reason why I should choose New York, only when I spoke to her of certain places there, she—she——"
He paused and thought the matter over carefully before finishing his sentence. He ended it at last in a singular manner.
"She said nothing," he said. "It is actually true—now I think of it—she said nothing whatever!"
"And because she said nothing whatever——" began Olivia.
He drew his hand across his forehead with a puzzled gesture.
"I fancied shelookedas if she knew," he said, slowly. "I am sure she looked as if she knew what I was talking about—as if she knew the places, I mean. It is very queer! There seems no reason in it. Why shouldn't she wish us to know where she lives?"
"I—I must confess," cried Olivia, "that I am getting a little tired of her."
It was treacherous and vicious, and she knew it was; but her guilty conscience and her increasing sense of having bungled drove her to desperation. If she had not promised to keep the truth to herself, she would have been only too glad to unburden herself. It was so stupid, after all, and she had only herself to blame.
Laurence drew a long breath.
"You can not be tired ofher!" he said. "That is impossible. She takes firmer hold upon one every hour."
This was certainly true, as far as he was concerned. He was often even surprised at his own enthusiasm. He had seen so many pretty women that it was almost inconsistent that he should be so much moved by the prettiness of one charming creature, and particularly one who spoke so little, who, after all, was—but there he always found himself at a full stop. He could not say what she was, he did not know yet; really, he seemed no nearer the solution of the mystery than he had been at first. There lay the fascination. He felt so sure there was an immense deal for him to discover, if he could only discover it. He had an ideal in his mind, and this ideal, he felt confident, was the real creature, if he could only see her. During the episode on the upper gallery he fancied he had caught a glimpse of what was to be revealed. The sudden passion on her pale young face, the fire in her eyes, were what he had dreamed of.
If he had not been possessed of courage and an honest faith in himself, born of a goodly amount of success, he would have been far more depressed than he was. She was going away, and had not encouraged him to look forward to their meeting again.
"I own it is rather bad to look at," he said to himself, "if one quite believed that Fate would serve one such an ill turn. She never played me such a trick, however, and I won't believe she will. I shall see her again—sometime. It will turn out fairly enough, surely."
So with this consolation he supported himself. There was one day left and he meant to make the best of it. It was to be spent in driving to a certain mountain, about ten miles distant. All tourists who were possessed of sufficient energy made this excursion as a matter of duty, if from no more enthusiastic motive. A strong, light carriage and a pair of horses were kept in the hotel stables for the express purpose of conveying guests to this special point.
This vehicle Ferrol had engaged the day before, and as matters had developed he had cause to congratulate himself upon the fact. He said to Louisiana what he had before said to himself:
"We have one day left, and we will make the best of it."
Olivia, who stood upon the gallery before which the carriage had been drawn up, glanced at Louisiana furtively. On her part she felt privately that it would be rather hard to make the best of it. She wished that it was well over. But Louisiana did not return her glance. She was looking at Ferrol and the horses. She had done something new this morning. She had laid aside her borrowed splendor and attired herself in one of her own dresses, which she had had the boldness to remodel. She had seized a hint from some one of Olivia's possessions, and had given her costume a pretty air of primitive simplicity. It was a plain white lawn, with a little frilled cape or fichu which crossed upon her breast, and was knotted loosely behind. She had a black velvet ribbon around her lithe waist, a rose in her bosom where the fichu crossed, and a broad Gainsborough hat upon her head. One was reminded somewhat of the picturesque young woman of the good old colony times. Ferrol, at least, when he first caught sight of her, was reminded of pictures he had seen of them.
There was no trace of her last night's fire in her manner. She was quieter than usual through the first part of the drive. She was gentle to submissiveness to Olivia. There was something even tender in her voice once or twice when she addressed her. Laurence noticed it, and accounted for it naturally enough.
"She is really fonder of her than she has seemed," he thought, "and she is sorry that their parting is so near."
He was just arriving at this conclusion when Louisiana touched his arm.
"Don't take that road," she said.
He drew up his horses and looked at her with surprise. There were two roads before them, and he had been upon the point of taking the one to the right.
"But it is the only road to take," he continued. "The other does not lead to the mountain. I was told to be sure to take the road to the right hand."
"It is a mistake," she said, in a disturbed tone. "The left-hand road leads to the mountain, too—at least, we can reach it by striking the wagon-road through the woods. I—yes, I am sure of it."
"But this is the better road. Is there any reason why you prefer the other? Could you pilot us? If you can——"
He stopped and looked at her appealingly.
He was ready to do anything she wished, but the necessity for his yielding had passed. Her face assumed a set look.
"I can't," she answered. "Take the road to the right. Why not?"
Ferrol was obliged to admit when they turned their faces homeward that the day was hardly a success, after all. Olivia had not been at her best, for some reason or other, and from the moment they had taken the right-hand road Louisiana had been wholly incomprehensible.
In her quietest mood she had never worn a cold air before; to-day she had been cold and unresponsive. It had struck him that she was absorbed in thinking of something which was quite beyond him. She was plainly not thinking of him, nor of Olivia, nor of the journey they were making. During the drive she had sat with her hands folded upon her lap, her eyes fixed straight before her. She had paid no attention to the scenery, only rousing herself to call their attention to one object. This object was a house they passed—the rambling, low-roofed white house of some well-to-do farmer. It was set upon a small hill and had a long front porch, mottled with blue and white paint in a sanguine attempt at imitating variegated marble.
She burst into a low laugh when she saw it.
"Look at that," she said. "That is one of the finest houses in the country. The man who owns it is counted a rich man among his neighbors."
Ferrol put up his eye-glasses to examine it. (It is to be deplored that he was a trifle near-sighted.)
"By George!" he said. "That is an idea, isn't it, that marble business! I wonder who did it? Do you know the man who lives there?"
"I have heard of him," she answered, "from several people. He is a namesake of mine. His name is Rogers."
When they returned to their carriage, after a ramble up the mountain-side, they became conscious that the sky had suddenly darkened. Ferrol looked up, and his face assumed a rather serious expression.
"If either of you is weather-wise," he said, "I wish you would tell me what that cloud means. You have been among the mountains longer than I have."
Louisiana glanced upward quickly.
"It means a storm," she said, "and a heavy one. We shall be drenched in half an hour."
Ferrol looked at her white dress and the little frilled fichu, which was her sole protection.
"Oh, but that won't do!" he exclaimed. "What insanity in me not to think of umbrellas!"
"Umbrellas!" echoed Louisiana. "If we had each six umbrellas they could not save us. We may as well get into the carriage. We are only losing time."
They were just getting in when an idea struck Ferrol which caused him to utter an exclamation of ecstatic relief.
"Why," he cried, "there is that house we passed! Get in quickly. We can reach there in twenty minutes."
Louisiana had her foot upon the step. She stopped short and turned to face him. She changed from red to white and from white to red again, as if with actual terror.
"There!" she exclaimed. "There!"
"Yes," he answered. "We can reach there in time to save ourselves. Is there any objection to our going,—in the last extremity?"
For a second they looked into each other's eyes, and then she turned and sprang into the carriage. She laughed aloud.
"Oh, no," she said. "Go there! It will be a nice place to stay—and the people will amuse you. Go there."
They reached the house in a quarter of an hour instead of twenty minutes. They had driven fast and kept ahead of the storm, but when they drew up before the picket fence the clouds were black and the thunder was rolling behind them.
It was Louisiana who got out first. She led the way up the path to the house and mounted the steps of the variegated porch. She did not knock at the door, which stood open, but, somewhat to Fermi's amazement, walked at once into the front room, which was plainly the room of state. Not to put too fine a point upon it, it was a hideous room.
The ceiling was so low that Ferrol felt as if he must knock his head against it; it was papered—ceiling and all—with paper of an unwholesome yellow enlivened with large blue flowers; there was a bedstead in one corner, and the walls were ornamented with colored lithographs of moon-faced houris, with round eyes and round, red cheeks, and wearing low-necked dresses, and flowers in their bosoms, and bright yellow gold necklaces. These works of art were the first things which caught Ferrol's eye, and he went slowly up to the most remarkable, and stood before it, regarding it with mingled wonderment and awe.
He turned from it after a few seconds to look at Louisiana, who stood near him, and he beheld what seemed to him a phenomenon. He had never seen her blush before as other women blush—now she was blushing, burning red from chin to brow.
"There—there is no one in this part of the house," she said. "I—I know more of these people than you do. I will go and try to find some one."
She was gone before he could interpose. Not that he would have interposed, perhaps. Somehow—without knowing why—he felt as if she did know more of the situation than he did—almost as if she were, in a manner, doing the honors for the time being.
She crossed the passage with a quick, uneven step, and made her way, as if well used to the place, into the kitchen at the back of the house.
A stout negro woman stood at a table, filling a pan with newly made biscuits. Her back was toward the door and she did not see who entered.
"Aunt Cassandry," the girl began, when the woman turned toward her.
"Who's dar?" she exclaimed. "Lor', honey, how ye skeert me! I aint no C'sandry."
The face she turned was a strange one, and it showed no sign of recognition of her visitor.
It was an odd thing that the sight of her unfamiliar face should have been a shock to Louisiana; but it was a shock. She put her hand to her side.
"Where is my—where is Mr. Rogers?" she asked. "I want to see him."
"Out on de back po'ch, honey, right now. Dar he goes!"
The girl heard him, and flew out to meet him. Her heart was throbbing hard, and she was drawing quick, short breaths.
"Father!" she cried. "Father! Don't go in the house!"
And she caught him by both shoulders and drew him round. He did not know her at first in her fanciful-simple dress and her Gainsborough hat. He was not used to that style of thing, believing that it belonged rather to the world of pictures. He stared at her. Then he broke out with an exclamation,
"Lo-rd! Louisianny!"
She kept her eyes on his face. They were feverishly bright, and her cheeks were hot. She laughed hysterically.
"Don't speak loud," she said. "There are some strange people in the house, and—and I want to tell you something."
He was a slow man, and it took him some time to grasp the fact that she was really before him in the flesh. He said, again:
"Lord, Louisianny!" adding, cheerfully, "How ye've serprised me!"
Then he took in afresh the change in her dress. There was a pile of stove-wood stacked on the porch to be ready for use, and he sat down on it to look at her.
"Why, ye've got a new dress on!" he said. "Thet thar's what made ye look sorter curis. I hardly knowed ye."
Then he remembered what she had said on first seeing him.
"Why don't ye want me to go in the house?" he asked. "What sort o' folks air they?"
"They came with me from the Springs," she answered; "and—and I want to—to play a joke on them."
She put her hands up to her burning cheeks, and stood so.
"A joke on 'em?" he repeated.
"Yes," she said, speaking very fast. "They don't know I live here, they think I came from some city,—they took the notion themselves,—and I want to let them think so until we go away from the house. It will be such a good joke."
She tried to laugh, but broke off in the middle of a harsh sound. Her father, with one copperas-colored leg crossed over the other, was chewing his tobacco slowly, after the manner of a ruminating animal, while he watched her.
"Don't you see?" she asked.
"Wa-al, no," he answered. "Not rightly."
She actually assumed a kind of spectral gayety.
"I never thought of it until I saw it was not Cassandry who was in the kitchen," she said. "The woman who is there didn't know me, and it came into my mind that—that we might play off on them," using the phraseology to which he was the most accustomed.
"Waal, we mought," he admitted, with a speculative deliberateness. "Thet's so. We mought—if thar was any use in it."
"It's only for a joke," she persisted, hurriedly.
"Thet's so," he repeated. "Thet's so."
He got up slowly and rather lumberingly from his seat and dusted the chips from his copperas-colored legs.
"Hev ye ben enjyin' yerself, Louisianny?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered. "Never better."
"Ye must hev," he returned, "or ye wouldn't be in sperrits to play jokes."
Then he changed his tone so suddenly that she was startled.
"What do ye want me to do?" he asked.
She put her hand on his shoulder and tried to laugh again.
"To pretend you don't know me—to pretend I have never been here before. That's joke enough, isn't it? They will think so when I tell them the truth. You slow old father! Why don't you laugh?"
"P'r'aps," he said, "it's on account o' me bein' slow, Louisianny. Mebbe I shall begin arter a while."
"Don't begin at the wrong time," she said, still keeping up her feverish laugh, "or you'll spoil it all. Now come along in and—and pretend you don't know me," she continued, drawing him forward by the arm. "They might suspect something if we stay so long. All you've got to do is to pretend you don't know me."
"That's so, Louisianny," with a kindly glance downward at her excited face as he followed her out. "Thar aint no call fur me to do nothin' else, is there—just pretend I don't know ye?"
It was wonderful how well he did it, too. When she preceded him into the room the girl was quivering with excitement. He might break down, and it would be all over in a second. But she looked Ferrol boldly in the face when she made her first speech.
"This is the gentleman of the house," she said. "I found him on the back porch. He had just come in. He has been kind enough to say we may stay until the storm is over."
"Oh, yes," said he hospitably, "stay an' welcome. Ye aint the first as has stopped over. Storms come up sorter suddent, an' we haint the kind as turns folks away."
Ferrol thanked him, Olivia joining in with a murmur of gratitude. They were very much indebted to him for his hospitality; they considered themselves very fortunate.
Their host received their protestations with much equanimity.
"If ye'd like to set out on the front porch and watch the storm come up," he said, "thar's seats thar. Or would ye druther set here? Women-folks is gen'rally fond o' settin' in-doors whar thar's a parlor."
But they preferred the porch, and followed him out upon it.
Having seen them seated, he took a chair himself. It was a split-seated chair, painted green, and he tilted it back against a pillar of the porch and applied himself to the full enjoyment of a position more remarkable for ease than elegance. Ferrol regarded him with stealthy rapture, and drank in every word he uttered.
"This," he had exclaimed delightedly to Olivia, in private—"why, this is delightful! These are the people we have read of. I scarcely believed in them before. I would not have missed it for the world!"
"In gin'ral, now," their entertainer proceeded, "wimmin-folk is fonder o' settin' in parlors. My wife was powerful sot on her parlor. She wasn't never satisfied till she hed one an' hed it fixed up to her notion. She was allers tradin' fur picters fur it. She tuk a heap o' pride in her picters. She allers had it in her mind that her little gal should have a showy parlor when she growed up."
"You have a daughter?" said Ferrol.
Their host hitched his chair a little to one side. He bent forward to expectorate, and then answered with his eyes fixed upon some distant point toward the mountains.
"Wa-al, yes," he said; "but she aint yere, Louisianny aint."
Miss Ferrol gave a little start, and immediately made an effort to appear entirely at ease.
"Did you say," asked Ferrol, "that your daughter's name was——"
"Louisianny," promptly. "I come from thar."
Louisiana got up and walked to the opposite end of the porch.
"The storm will be upon us in a few minutes," she said. "It is beginning to rain now. Come and look at this cloud driving over the mountain-top."
Ferrol rose and went to her. He stood for a moment looking at the cloud, but plainly not thinking of it.
"His daughter's name is Louisiana," he said, in an undertone. "Louisiana! Isn't that delicious?"
Suddenly, even as he spoke, a new idea occurred to him.
"Why," he exclaimed, "your name is Louise, isn't it? I think Olivia said so."
"Yes," she answered, "my name is Louise."
"How should you have liked it," he inquired, absent-mindedly, "if it had been Louisiana?"
She answered him with a hard coolness which it startled him afterward to remember.
"How would you have liked it?" she said.
They were driven back just then by the rain, which began to beat in upon their end of the porch. They were obliged to return to Olivia and Mr. Rogers, who were engaged in an animated conversation.
The fact was that, in her momentary excitement, Olivia had plunged into conversation as a refuge. She had suddenly poured forth a stream of remark and query which had the effect of spurring up her companion to a like exhibition of frankness. He had been asking questions, too.
"She's ben tellin' me," he said, as Ferrol approached, "thet you're a littery man, an' write fur the papers—novel-stories, an' pomes an' things. I never seen one before—not as I know on."
"I wonder why not!" remarked Ferrol. "We are plentiful enough."
"Air ye now?" he asked reflectively. "I had an idee thar was only one on ye now an' ag'in—jest now an' ag'in."
He paused there to shake his head.
"I've often wondered how ye could do it," he said, "Icouldn't. Thar's some as thinks they could if they tried, but I wa'n't never thataway—I wa'n't never thataway. I haint no idee I could do it, not if I tried ever so. Seems to me," he went on, with the air of making an announcement of so novel a nature that he must present it modestly, "seems to me, now, as if them as does it must hev a kinder gift fur'it, now. Lord! I couldn't write a novel. I wouldn't know whar to begin."
"It is difficult to decide where," said Ferrol.
He did not smile at all. His manner was perfect—so full of interest, indeed, that Mr. Rogers quite warmed and expanded under it.
"The scenes on 'em all, now, bein' mostly laid in Bagdad, would be agin me, if nothin' else war," he proceeded.
"Being laid——?" queried Ferrol.
"In Bagdad or—wa-al, furrin parts tharabouts. Ye see I couldn't tell nothin' much about no place but North Ca'liny, an' folks wouldn't buy it."
"But why not?" exclaimed Ferrol.
"Why, Lord bless ye!" he said, hilariously, "they'd know it wa'n't true. They'd say in a minnit: 'Why, thar's thet fool Rogers ben a writin' a pack o' lies thet aint a word on it true. Thar aint no castles in Hamilton County, an' thar aint no folks like these yere. It just aint so! I 'lowed thet thar was the reason the novel-writers allers writ about things a-happenin' in Bagdad. Ye kin say most anythin' ye like about Bagdad an' no one cayn't contradict ye."
"I don't seem to remember many novels of—of that particular description," remarked Ferrol, in a rather low voice. "Perhaps my memory——"
"Ye don't?" he queried, in much surprise. "Waal now, jest you notice an' see if it aint so. I haint read many novels myself. I haint read but one——"
"Oh!" interposed Ferrol. "And it was a story of life in Bagdad."
"Yes; an' I've heard tell of others as was the same. Hance Claiborn, now, he was a-tellen me of one."
He checked himself to speak to the negro woman who had presented herself at a room door.
"We're a-comin', Nancy," he said, with an air of good-fellowship. "Now, ladies an' gentlemen," he added, rising from his chair, "walk in an' have some supper."
Ferrol and Olivia rose with some hesitation.
"You are very kind," they said. "We did not intend to give you trouble."
"Trouble!" he replied, as if scarcely comprehending. "This yere aint no trouble. Ye haint ben in North Ca'liny before, hev ye?" he continued, good-naturedly. "We're bound to hev ye eat, if ye stay with us long enough. We wouldn't let ye go 'way without eatin', bless ye. We aint that kind. Walk straight in."
He led them into a long, low room, half kitchen, half dining-room. It was not so ugly as the room of state, because it was entirely unadorned. Its ceiled walls were painted brown and stained with many a winter's smoke. The pine table was spread with a clean homespun cloth and heaped with well-cooked, appetizing food.
"If ye can put up with country fare, ye'll not find it so bad," said the host. "Nancy prides herself on her way o' doin' things."
There never was more kindly hospitality, Ferrol thought. The simple generosity which made them favored guests at once warmed and touched him. He glanced across at Louisiana to see if she was not as much pleased as he was himself. But the food upon her plate remained almost untouched. There was a strange look on her face; she was deadly pale and her downcast eyes shone under their lashes. She did not look at their host at all; it struck Ferrol that she avoided looking at him with a strong effort. Her pallor made him anxious.
"You are not well," he said to her. "You do not look well at all."
Their host started and turned toward her.
"Why, no ye aint!" he exclaimed, quite tremulously. "Lord, no! Ye cayn't be. Ye haint no color. What—what's the trouble, Lou—Lord! I was gwine to call ye Louisianny, an'—she aint yere, Louisianny aint."
He ended with a nervous laugh.
"I'm used to takin' a heap o' care on her," he said. "I've lost ten on 'em, an' she's all that's left me, an'—an' I think a heap on her. I—I wish she was yere. Ye musn't git sick, ma'am."
The girl got up hurriedly.
"I am not sick, really," she said. "The thunder—I have a little headache. I will go out on to the porch. It's clearing up now. The fresh air will do me good."
The old man rose, too, with rather a flurried manner.
"If Louisianny was yere," he faltered, "she could give ye something to help ye. Camphire now—sperrits of camphire—let me git ye some."
"No—no," said the girl. "No, thank you."
And she slipped out of the door and was gone.
Mr. Rogers sat down again with a sigh.
"I wish she'd let me git her some," he said, wistfully. "I know how it is with young critters like that. They're dele-cate," anxiously. "Lord, they're dele-cate. They'd oughter hev' their mothers round 'em. I know how it is with Louisianny."
A cloud seemed to settle upon him. He rubbed his grizzled chin with his hand again and again, glancing at the open door as he did it. It was evident that his heart was outside with the girl who was like "Louisianny."