On the last day of the year the young men from Chericoke, as they rode down the turnpike, came upon Betty bringing holly berries from the wood. She was followed by two small negroes laden with branches, and beside her ran her young setters, Peyton and Bill.
As Dan came up with her, he checked his horse and swung himself to the ground. “Thank God I've passed the boundary!” he exclaimed over his shoulder to the others. “Ride on, my lads, ride on! Don't prate of the claims of hospitality to me. My foot is on my neighbours' heath; I'm host to no man.”
“Come, now, Beau,” remonstrated Jack Morson, looking down from his saddle; “I see in Miss Betty's eyes that she wants me to carry that holly—I swear I do.”
“Then you see more than is written,” declared Champe, from the other side, “for it's as plain as day that one eye says Diggs and one Lightfoot—isn't it, Betty?”
Betty looked up, laughing. “If you are so skilled in foreign tongues, what can I answer?” she asked. “Only that I've been a mile after this holly for the party to-night, and I wouldn't trust it to all of you together—for worlds.”
“Oh, go on, go on,” said Dan, impatiently, “doesn't that mean that she'll trust it to me alone? Good morning, my boys, God be with you,” and he led Prince Rupert aside while the rest rode by.
When they were out of sight he turned to one of the small negroes, his hand on the bridle. “Shall we exchange burdens, O eater of 'possums?” he asked blandly. “Will you permit me to tote your load, while you lead my horse to the house? You aren't afraid of him, are you?”
The little negro grinned. “He do look moughty glum, suh,” he replied, half fearfully.
“Glum! Why, the amiability in that horse's face is enough to draw tears. Come up, Prince Rupert, your highness is to go ahead of me; it's to oblige a lady, you know.”
Then, as Prince Rupert was led away, Dan looked at Betty.
“Shall it be the turnpike or the meadow path?” he inquired, with the gay deference he used toward women, as if a word might turn it to a jest or a look might make it earnest.
“The meadow, but not the path,” replied the girl; “the path is asleep under the snow.” She cast a happy glance over the white landscape, down the long turnpike, and across the broad meadow where a cedar tree waved like a snowy plume. “Jake, we must climb the wall,” she added to the negro boy, “be careful about the berries.”
Dan threw his holly into the meadow and lifted Betty upon the stone wall. “Now wait a moment,” he cautioned, as he went over. “Don't move till I tell you. I'm managing this job—there, now jump!”
He caught her hands and set her on her feet beside him. “Take your fence, my beauties,” he called gayly to the dogs, as they came bounding across the turnpike.
Betty straightened her cap and took up her berries.
“Your tender mercies are rather cruel,” she complained, as she did so. “Even my hair is undone.”
“Oh, it's all the better,” returned Dan, without looking at her. “I don't see why girls make themselves so smooth, anyway. That's what I like about you, you know—you've always got a screw loose somewhere.”
“But I haven't,” cried Betty, stopping in the snow.
“What! if I find a curl where it oughtn't to be, may I have it?”
“Of course not,” she answered indignantly.
“Well, there's one hanging over your ear now. Shall I put it straight with this piece of holly? My hands are full, but I think I might manage it.”
“Don't touch me with your holly!” exclaimed Betty, walking faster; then in a moment she turned and stood calling to the dogs. “Have you noticed what beauties Bill and Peyton have grown to be?” she questioned pleasantly. “There weren't any boys to be named after papa and Uncle Bill, so I called the dogs after them, you know. Papa says he would rather have had a son named Peyton; but I tell him the son might have been wicked and brought his hairs in sorrow to the grave.”
“Well, I dare say, you're right,” he stopped with a sweep of his hand, and stood looking to where a flock of crows were flying over the dried spectres of carrot flowers that stood up above the snow; “That's fine, now, isn't it?” he asked seriously.
Betty followed his gesture, then she gave a little cry and threw her arms round the dogs. “The poor crows are so hungry,” she said. “No, no, you mustn't chase them, Bill and Peyton, it isn't right, you see. Here, Jake, come and hold the dogs, while I feed the crows.” She drew a handful of corn from the pocket of her cloak, and flung it out into the meadow.
“I always bring corn for them,” she explained; “they get so hungry, and sometimes they starve to death right out here. Papa says they are pernicious birds; but I don't care—do you mind their being pernicious?”
“I? Not in the least. I assure you I trouble myself very little about the morals of my associates. I'm not fond of crows; but it is their voices rather than their habits I object to. I can't stand their eternal 'cawing!'—it drives me mad.”
“I suppose foxes are pernicious beasts, also,” said Betty, as she walked on; “but there's an old red fox in the woods that I've been feeding for years. I don't know anything that foxes like to eat except chickens, but I carry him a basket of potatoes and turnips and bread, and pile them up under a pine tree; it's just as well for him to acquire the taste for them, isn't it?”
She smiled at Dan above her fur tippet, and he forgot her words in watching the animation come and go in her face. He fell to musing over her decisive little chin, the sensitive curves of her nostrils and sweet wide mouth, and above all over her kind yet ardent look, which gave the peculiar beauty to her eyes.
“Ah, is there anything in heaven or earth that you don't like?” he asked, as he gazed at her.
“That I don't like? Shall I really tell you?”
He bent toward her over his armful of holly.
“I have a capacious breast for secrets,” he assured her.
“Then you will never breathe it?”
“Will you have me swear?” he glanced about him.
“Not by the inconstant moon,” she entreated merrily.
“Well, by my 'gracious self'; what's the rest of it?”
She coloured and drew away from him. His eyes made her self-conscious, ill at ease; the very carelessness of his look disconcerted her.
“No, do not swear,” she begged. “I shall trust you with even so weighty a confidence. I do not like—”
“Oh, come, why torture me?” he demanded.
She made a little gesture of alarm. “From fear of the wrath to come,” she admitted.
“Of my wrath?” he regarded her with amazement. “Oh, don't you likeme?” he exclaimed.
“You! Yes, yes—but—have mercy upon your petitioner. I do not like your cravats.”
She shut her eyes and stood before him with lowered head.
“My cravats!” cried Dan, in dismay, as his hand went to his throat, “but my cravats are from Paris—Charlie Morson brought them over. What is the matter with them?”
“They—they're too fancy,” confessed Betty. “Papa wears only white, or black ones you know.”
“Too fancy! Nonsense! do you want to send me back to grandfather's stocks, I wonder? It's just pure envy—that's what it is. Never mind, I'll give you the very best one I've got.”
Betty shook her head. “And what should I do with it, pray?” she asked. “Uncle Shadrach wouldn't wear it for worlds—he wears only papa's clothes, you see. Oh, I might give it to Hosea; but I don't think he'd like it.”
“Hosea! Well, I declare,” exclaimed Dan, and was silent.
When he spoke a little later it was somewhat awkwardly.
“I say, did Virginia ever tell you she didn't like my cravats?” he inquired.
“Virginia!” her voice was a little startled. “Oh, Virginia thinks they're lovely.”
“And you don't?”
“No, I don't.”
“Well, you are a case,” he said, and walked on slowly.
They were already in sight of the house, and he did not speak again until they had passed the portico and entered the hall. There they found Virginia and the young men, who had ridden over ahead of them, hanging evergreens for the approaching party. Jack Morson, from the top of the step-ladder, was suspending a holly wreath above the door, while Champe was entwining the mahogany balustrade in running cedar.
“Oh, Betty, would it be disrespectful to put mistletoe above General Washington's portrait?” called Virginia, as they went into the hall.
“I don't think he'd mind—the old dear,” answered Betty, throwing her armful of holly upon the floor. “There, Dan, the burden of the day is over.”
“And none too soon,” said Dan, as he tossed the holly from him. “Diggs, you sluggard, what are you sitting there in idleness for? Miss Pussy, can't you set him to work?”
Miss Pussy, who was bustling in and out with a troop of servants at her heels, found time to reply seriously that she really didn't think there was anything she could trust him with. “Of course, I don't mind your amusing yourselves with the decorations,” she added briskly, “but the cooking is quite a different thing, you know.”
“Amusing myself!” protested Dan, in astonishment. “My dear lady, do you call carrying a wagon load of brushwood amusement? Now, I'll grant, if you please, that Morson is amusing himself on the step-ladder.”
“Keep off,” implored Morson, in terror; “if you shake the thing, I'm gone, I declare I am.”
He nailed the garland in place and came down cautiously. “Now, that's what I call an artistic job,” he complacently remarked.
“Why, it's lovely,” said Virginia, smiling, as he turned to her. “It's lovely, isn't it, Betty?”
“As lovely as a crooked thing can be,” laughed Betty. She was looking earnestly at Virginia, and wondering if she really liked Jack Morson so very much. The girl was so bewitching in her red dress, with the flush of a sudden emotion in her face, and the shyness in her downcast eyes.
“Oh, that isn't fair, Virginia,” called Champe from the steps. “Save your favour for the man that deserves it—and look at me.” Virginia did look at him, sending him the same radiant glance.
“But I've many 'lovelies' left,” she said quickly; “it's my favourite word.”
“A most appropriate taste,” faltered Diggs, from his chair beneath the hall clock.
Champe descended the staircase with a bound.
“What do I hear?” he exclaimed. “Has the oyster opened his mouth and brought forth a compliment?”
“Oh, be quiet,” commanded Dan, “I shan't hear Diggs made fun of, and it's time to get back, anyway. Well, loveliest of lovely ladies, you must put on your prettiest frock to-night.”
Virginia's blush deepened. Did she like Dan so very much? thought Betty.
“But you mustn't notice me, please,” she begged, “all the neighbours are coming, and there are so many girls,—the Powells and the Harrisons and the Dulaneys. I am going to wear pink, but you mustn't notice it, you know.”
“That's right,” said Jack Morson, “make him do his duty by the County, and keep your dances for Diggs and me.”
“I've done my duty by you, sir,” was Dan's prompt retort, “so I'll begin to do my pleasure by myself. Now I give you fair warning, Virginia, if you don't save the first reel for me, I'll dance all the rest with Betty.”
“Then it will be a Betty of your own making,” declared Betty over her shoulder, “for this Betty doesn't dance a single step with you to-night, so there, sir.”
“Your punishment be on your own head, rash woman,” said Dan, sternly, as he took up his riding-whip. “I'll dance with Peggy Harrison,” and he went out to Prince Rupert, lifting his hat, as he mounted, to Miss Lydia, who stood at her window above. A moment later they heard his horse's hoofs ringing in the drive, and his voice gayly whistling:—
“They tell me thou'rt the favor'd guest.”
When the others joined him in the turnpike, the four voices took up the air, and sent the pathetic melody fairly dancing across the snow.
“Do I thus haste to hall and bowerAmong the proud and gay to shine?Or deck my hair with gem and flowerTo flatter other eyes than thine?Ah, no, with me love's smiles are past;Thou hadst the first, thou hadst the last.”
The song ended in a burst of laughter, and up the white turnpike, beneath the melting snow that rained down from the trees, they rode merrily back to Chericoke.
In the carriage way they found the Major, wrapped in his broadcloth cape, taking what he called a “breath of air.”
“Well, gentlemen, I hope you had a pleasant ride,” he remarked, following them into the house. “You didn't see your way to stop by Uplands, I reckon?”
“That we did, sir,” said Diggs, who was never bashful with the Major. “In fact, we made ourselves rather useful, I believe.”
“They're charming young ladies over there, eh?” inquired the Major, genially; and a little later when Dan and he were alone, he put the same question to his grandson. “They're delightful girls, are they not, my boy?” he ventured incautiously. “You have noticed, I dare say, how your grandmother takes to Betty—and she's not a woman of many fancies, is your grandmother.”
“Oh, but Virginia!” exclaimed Dan, with enthusiasm. “I wish you could have seen her in her red dress to-day. You don't half realize what a thundering beauty that girl is. Why, she positively took my breath away.”
The Major chuckled and rubbed his hands together.
“I don't, eh?” he said, scenting a romance as an old war horse scents a battle. “Well, well, maybe not; but I see where the wind blows anyway, and you have my congratulations on either hand. I shan't deny that we old folks had a leaning to Betty; but youth is youth, and we shan't oppose your fancy. So I congratulate you, my boy, I congratulate you.”
“Ah, she wouldn't look at me, sir,” declared Dan, feeling that the pace was becoming a little too impetuous. “I only wish she would; but I'd as soon expect the moon to drop from the skies.”
“Not look at you! Pooh, pooh!” protested the old gentleman, indignantly. “Proper pride is not vanity, sir; and there's never been a Lightfoot yet that couldn't catch a woman's eye, if I do say it who should not. Pooh, pooh! it isn't a faint heart that wins the ladies.”
“I know you to be an authority, my dear grandpa,” admitted the young man, lightly glancing into the gilt-framed mirror above the mantel. “If there's any of your blood in me, it makes for conquest.” From the glass he caught the laughter in his eyes and turned it on his grandfather.
“It ill becomes me to rob the Lightfoots of one of their chief distinctions,” said the Major, smiling in his turn. “We are not a proud people, my boy; but we've always fought like men and made love like gentlemen, and I hope that you will live up to your inheritance.”
Then, as his grandson ran upstairs to dress, he followed him as far as Mrs. Lightfoot's chamber, and informed her with a touch of pomposity: “That it was Virginia, not Betty, after all. But we'll make the best of it, my dear,” he added cheerfully. “Either of the Ambler girls is a jewel of priceless value.”
The little old lady received this flower of speech with more than ordinary unconcern.
“Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Lightfoot, that the boy has begun already?” she demanded, in amazement.
“He doesn't say so,” replied the Major, with a chuckle; “but I see what he means—I see what he means. Why, he told me he wished I could have seen her to-day in her red dress—and, bless my soul, I wish I could, ma'am.”
“I don't see what good it would do you,” returned his wife, coolly. “But did he have the face to tell you he was in love with the girl, Mr. Lightfoot?”
“Have the face?” repeated the Major, testily. “Pray, why shouldn't he have the face, ma'am? Whom should he tell, I'd like to know, before he tells his grandfather?” and with a final “pooh, pooh!” he returned angrily to his library and to theRichmond Whig, a paper he breathlessly read and mightily abused.
Dan, meanwhile, upstairs in his room with Champe, was busily sorting his collection of neckwear.
“Look here, Champe, I'll give you all these red ties, if you want them,” he generously concluded. “I believe, after all, I'll take to wearing white or black ones again.”
“What?” asked Champe, in astonishment, turning on his heel. “Have the skies fallen, or does Beau Montjoy forsake the fashions?”
“Confound the fashions!” retorted Dan, impatiently. “I don't care a jot for the fashions. You may have all these, if you choose,” and he tossed the neckties upon the bed.
Champe picked up one and examined it with interest.
“O woman,” he murmured as he did so, “your hand is small but mighty.”
Despite Virginia's endeavour to efface herself for her guests, she shone unrivalled at the party, and Dan, who had held her hand for an ecstatic moment under the mistletoe, felt, as he rode home in the moonlight afterwards, that his head was fairly on fire with her beauty. She had been sweetly candid and flatteringly impartial. He could not honestly assert that she had danced with him oftener than with Morson, or a dozen others, but he had a pleasant feeling that even when she shook her head and said, “I cannot,” her soft eyes added for her, “though I really wish to.” There was something almost pitiable, he told himself in the complacency with which that self-satisfied ass Morson would come and take her from him. As if he hadn't sense enough to discover that it was merely because she was his hostess that she went with him at all. But some men would never understand women, though they lived to be a thousand, and got rejected once a day.
Out in the moonlight, with the Governor's wine singing in his blood, he found that his emotions had a way of tripping lightly off his tongue. There were hot words with Diggs, who hinted that Virginia was not the beauty of the century, and threats of blows with Morson, who too boldly affirmed that she was. In the end Champe rode between them, and sent Prince Rupert on his way with a touch of the whip.
“For heaven's sake, keep your twaddle to yourselves!” he exclaimed impatiently, “or take my advice, and make for the nearest duck pond. You've both gone over your depth in the Governor's Madeira, and I advise you to keep quiet until you've had your heads in a basin of ice water. There, get out of my road, Morson. I can't sit here freezing all night.”
“Do you dare to imply that I am drunk, sir?” demanded Morson, in a fury. “Bear witness, gentlemen, that the insult was unprovoked.”
“Oh, insult be damned!” retorted Champe. “If you shake your fist at me again, I'll pitch you head over heels into that snowdrift.”
“Pitch whom, sir?” roared Morson, riding at the wall, when Diggs caught his bridle and roughly dragged him back.
“Come, now, don't make a beast of yourself,” he implored.
“Who's a beast?” was promptly put by Morson; but leaving it unanswered, Diggs wheeled his horse about and started up the turnpike. “You've let Beau get out of sight,” he said. “We'd better catch up with him,” and he set off at a gallop.
Dan, who had ridden on at Champe's first words, did not even turn his head when the three came abreast with him. The moonlight was in his eyes, and the vision of Virginia floated before him at his saddle bow. He let the reins fall loosely on Prince Rupert's neck, and as the hoofs rang on the frozen road, thrust his hands for warmth into his coat. In another dress, with his dark hair blown backward in the wind, he might have been a cavalier fresh from the service of his lady or his king, or riding carelessly to his death for the sake of the drunken young Pretender.
But he was only following his dreams, and they hovered round Virginia, catching their rosy glamour from her dress. In the cold night air he saw her walking demurely through the lancers, her skirt held up above her satin shoes, her coral necklace glowing deeper pink against her slim white throat. Mistletoe and holly hung over her, and the light of the candles shone brighter where her radiant figure passed. He caught the soft flash of her shy brown eyes, he heard her gentle voice speaking trivial things with profound tenderness. His hand still burned from the light pressure of her finger tips. Oh, his day had come, he told himself, and he was furiously in love at last.
As for going back to college, the very idea was absurd. At twenty years it was quite time for him to settle down and keep open house like other men. Virginia, in rose pink, flitted up the crooked stair and across the white panels of the parlor, and with a leap, his heart went after her. He saw Great-aunt Emmeline lean down from her faded canvas as if to toss her apple at the young girl's feet. Ah, poor old beauty, hanging in a gilded frame, what was her century of dust to a bit of living flesh that had bright eyes and was coloured like a flower?
When he was safely married he would have his wife's portrait hung upon the opposite wall, only he rather thought he should have the dogs in and let her be Diana, with a spear instead of an apple in her hand. Two beauties in one family—that was something to be proud of even in Virginia.
It was at this romantic point that Champe shattered his visions by shooting a jest at him about the “love sick swain.”
“Oh, be off, and let a fellow think, won't you?” he retorted angrily.
“Do you hear him call it thinking?” jeered Diggs, from the other side.
“He doesn't call it mooning, oh, no,” scoffed Champe.
“Oh, there's nothing half so sweet in life,” sang Morson, striking an attitude that almost threw him off his horse.
“Shut up, Morson,” commanded Diggs, “you ought to be thankful if you had enough sense left to moon with.”
“Sense, who wants sense?” inquired Morson, on the point of tears. “I have heart, sir.”
“Then keep it bottled up,” rejoined Champe, coolly, as they turned into the drive at Chericoke.
In Dan's room they found Big Abel stretched before the fire asleep; and as the young men came in, he sat up and rubbed his eyes.
“Hi! young Marsters, hit's ter-morrow!” he exclaimed.
“To-morrow! I wish it were to-morrow,” responded Dan, cheerfully. “The fire makes my head spin like a top. Here, come and pull off my coat, Big Abel, or I'll have to go to bed with my clothes on.”
Big Abel pulled off the coat and brushed it carefully; then he held out his hand for Champe's.
“I hope dis yer coat ain' gwine lose hit's set 'fo' hit gits ter me,” he muttered as he hung them up. “Seems like you don' teck no cyar yo' clothes, nohow, Marse Dan. I'se de wuss dress somebody dis yer side er de po' w'ite trash. Wat's de use er bein' de quality ef'n you ain' got de close?”
“Stop grumbling, you fool you,” returned Dan, with his lordly air. “If it's my second best evening suit you're after, you may take it; but I tell you now, it's the last thing you're going to get out of me till summer.”
Big Abel took down the second best suit of clothes and examined them with an interest they had never inspired before. “I d'clar you sutney does set hard,” he remarked after a moment, and added, tentatively, “I dunno whar de shuts gwine come f'om.”
“Not from me,” replied Dan, airily; “and now get out of here, for I'm going to sleep.”
But when he threw himself upon his bed it was to toss with feverish rose-coloured dreams until the daybreak.
His blood was still warm when he came down to breakfast; but he met his grandfather's genial jests with a boyish attempt at counter-buff.
“Oh, you needn't twit me, sir,” he said with an embarrassed laugh; “to wear the heart upon the sleeve is hereditary with us, you know.”
“Keep clear of the daws, my son, and it does no harm,” responded the Major. “There's nothing so becoming to a gentleman as a fine heart well worn, eh, Molly?”
He carefully spread the butter upon his cakes, for his day of love-making was over, and his eye could hold its twinkle while he watched Dan fidget in his seat.
Mrs. Lightfoot promptly took up the challenge. “For my part I prefer one under a buttoned coat,” she replied briskly; “but be careful, Mr. Lightfoot, or you will put notions into the boys' heads. They are at the age when a man has a fancy a day and gets over it before he knows it.”
“They are at the age when I had my fancy for you, Molly,” gallantly retorted the Major, “and I seem to be carrying it with me to my grave.”
“It would be a dull wit that would go roving from Aunt Molly,” said Champe, affectionately; “but there aren't many of her kind in the world.”
“I never found but one like her,” admitted the Major, “and I've seen a good deal in my day, sir.”
The old lady listened with a smile, though she spoke in a severe voice. “You mustn't let them teach you how to flatter, Mr. Morson,” she said warningly, as she filled the Major's second cup of coffee—“Cupid, Mr. Morson will have a partridge.”
“The man who sits at your table will never question your supremacy, dear madam,” returned Jack Morson, as he helped himself to a bird. “There is little merit in devotion to such bounty.”
“Shall I kick him, grandma?” demanded Dan. “He means that we love you because you feed us, the sly scamp.”
Mrs. Lightfoot shook her head reprovingly. “Oh, I understand you, Mr. Morson,” she said amiably, “and a compliment to my housekeeping never goes amiss. If a woman has any talent, it will come out upon her table.”
“You're right, Molly, you're right,” agreed the Major, heartily. “I've always held that there was nothing in a man who couldn't make a speech or in a woman who couldn't set a table.”
Dan stirred restlessly in his chair, and at the first movement of Mrs. Lightfoot he rose and went out into the hall. An hour later he ordered Prince Rupert and started joyously to Uplands.
As he rode through the frosted air he pictured to himself a dozen different ways in which it was possible that he might meet Virginia. Would she be upon the portico or in the parlour? Was she still in pink or would she wear the red gown of yesterday? When she gave him her hand would she smile as she had smiled last night? or would she stand demurely grave with down dropped lashes?
The truth was that she did none of the things he had half expected of her. She was sitting before a log fire, surrounded by a group of Harrisons and Powells, who had been prevailed upon to spend the night, and when he entered she gave him a sleepy little nod from the corner of a rosewood sofa. As she lay back in the firelight she was like a drowsy kitten that had just awakened from a nap. Though less radiant, her beauty was more appealing, and as she stared at him with her large eyes blinking, he wanted to stoop down and rock her off to sleep. He regarded her calmly this morning, for, with all his tenderness, she did not fire his brain, and the glory of the vision had passed away. Half angrily he asked himself if he were in love with a pink dress and nothing more?
An hour afterward he came noisily into the library at Chericoke and aroused the Major from his Horace by stamping distractedly about the room.
“Oh, it's all up with me, sir,” he began despondently. “I might as well go out and hang myself. I don't know what I want and yet I'm going mad because I can't get it.”
“Come, come,” said the Major, soothingly. “I've been through it myself, sir, and since your grandmother's out of earshot, I'd as well confess that I've been through it more than once. Cheer up, cheer up, you aren't the first to dare the venture—Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona, you know.”
His assurance was hardly as comforting as he had intended it to be. “Oh, I dare say, there've been fools enough before me,” returned Dan, impatiently, as he flung himself out of the room.
He grew still more impatient when the day came for him to return to college; and as they started out on horseback, with Zeke and Big Abel riding behind their masters, he declared irritably that the whole system of education was a nuisance, and that he “wished the ark had gone down with all the ancient languages on board.”
“There would still be law,” suggested Morson, pleasantly. “So cheer up, Beau, there's something left for you to learn.”
Then, as they passed Uplands, they turned, with a single impulse, and cantered up the broad drive to the portico. Betty and Virginia were in the library; and as they heard the horses, they came running to the window and threw it open.
“So you will come back in the summer—all of you,” said Virginia, hopefully, and as she leaned out a white camellia fell from her bosom to the snow beneath. In an instant Jack Morson was off his horse and the flower was in his hand. “We'll bring back all that we take away,” he answered gallantly, his fair boyish face as red as Virginia's.
Dan could have kicked him for the words, but he merely said savagely, “Have you left your pocket handkerchief?” and turned Prince Rupert toward the road. When he looked back from beneath the silver poplars, the girls were still standing at the open window, the cold wind flushing their cheeks and blowing the brown hair and the red together.
Virginia was the first to turn away. “Come in, you'll take cold,” she said, going to the fire. “Peggy Harrison never goes out when the wind blows, you know, she says it's dreadful for the complexion. Once when she had to come back from town on a March day, she told me she wore six green veils. I wonder if that's the way she keeps her lovely colour?”
“Well, I wouldn't be Peggy Harrison,” returned Betty, gayly, and she added in the same tone, “so Mr. Morson got your camellia, after all, didn't he?”
“Oh, he begged so hard with his eyes,” answered Virginia. “He had seen me give Dan a white rose on Christmas Eve, you know, and he said it wasn't fair to be so unfair.”
“You gave Dan a white rose?” repeated Betty, slowly. Her face was pale, but she was smiling brightly.
Virginia's soft little laugh pealed out. “And it was your rose, too, darling,” she said, nestling to Betty like a child. “You dropped it on the stair and I picked it up. I was just going to take it to you because it looked so lovely in your hair, when Dan came along and he would have it, whether or no. But you don't mind, do you, just a little bit of white rosebud?” She put up her hand and stroked her sister's cheek. “Men are so silly, aren't they?” she added with a sigh.
For a moment Betty looked down upon the brown head on her bosom; then she stooped and kissed Virginia's brow. “Oh, no, I don't mind, dear,” she answered, “and women are very silly, too, sometimes.”
She loosened Virginia's arms and went slowly upstairs to her bedroom, where Petunia was replenishing the fire. “You may go down, Petunia,” she said as she entered. “I am going to put my things to rights, and I don't want you to bother me—go straight downstairs.”
“Is you gwine in yo' chist er draws?” inquired Petunia, pausing upon the threshold.
“Yes, I'm going into my chest of drawers, but you're not,” retorted Betty, sharply; and when Petunia had gone out and closed the door after her, she pulled out her things and began to straighten rapidly, rolling up her ribbons with shaking fingers, and carefully folding her clothes into compact squares. Ever since her childhood she had always begun to work at her chest of drawers when any sudden shock unnerved her. After a great happiness she took up her trowel and dug among the flowers of the garden; but when her heart was heavy within her, she shut her door and put her clothes to rights.
Now, as she worked rapidly, the tears welled slowly to her lashes, but she brushed them angrily away, and rolled up a sky-blue sash. She had worn the sash at Chericoke on Christmas Eve, and as she looked at it, she felt, with the keenness of pain, a thrill of her old girlish happiness. The figure of Dan, as he stood upon the threshold with the powdering of snow upon his hair, rose suddenly to her eyes, and she flinched before the careless humour of his smile. It was her own fault, she told herself a little bitterly, and because it was her own fault she could bear it as she should have borne the joy. There was nothing to cry over, nothing even to regret; she knew now that she loved him, and she was glad—glad even of this. If the bitterness in her heart was but the taste of knowledge, she would not let it go; she would keep both the knowledge and the bitterness.
In the next room Mammy Riah was rocking back and forth upon the hearth, crooning to herself while she carded a lapful of wool. Her cracked old voice, still with its plaintive sweetness, came faintly to the girl who leaned her cheek upon the sky-blue sash and listened, half against her will:—
“Oh, we'll all be done wid trouble, by en bye, little chillun,We'll all be done wid trouble, by en bye.Oh, we'll set en chatter wid de angels, by en bye, little chillun,We'll set en chatter wid de angels, by en bye.”
The door opened and Virginia came softly into the room, and stopped short at the sight of Betty.
“Why, your things were perfectly straight, Betty,” she exclaimed in surprise. “I declare, you'll be a real old maid.”
“Perhaps I shall,” replied Betty, indifferently; “but if I am, I'm going to be a tidy one.”
“I never heard of one who wasn't,” remarked Virginia, and added, “you've put all your ribbons into the wrong drawer.”
“I like a change,” said Betty, folding up a muslin skirt.
“Oh, we'll slip en slide on de golden streets, by en bye,little chillun,We'll slip en slide on de golden streets, by en bye,”
sang Mammy Riah, in the adjoining room.
“Aunt Lydia found six red pinks in bloom in her window garden,” observed Virginia, cheerfully. “Why, where are you going, Betty?”
“Just for a walk,” answered Betty, as she put on her bonnet and cloak. “I'm not afraid of the cold, you know, and I'm so tired sitting still,” and she added, as she fastened her fur tippet, “I shan't be long, dear.”
She opened the door, and Mammy Riah's voice followed her across the hall and down the broad staircase:—
“Oh, we'll ride on de milk w'ite ponies, by en bye, little chillun,We'll ride on de milk w'ite ponies, by en bye.”
At the foot of the stair she called the dogs, and they came bounding through the hall and leaped upon her as she crossed the portico. Then, as she went down the drive and up the desolate turnpike, they ran ahead of her with short, joyous barks.
The snow had melted and frozen again, and the long road was like a gray river winding between leafless trees. The gaunt crows were still flying back and forth over the meadows, but she did not have corn for them to-day. Had she been happy, she would not have forgotten them; but the pain in her breast made her selfish even about the crows.
With the dogs leaping round her, she pressed bravely against the wind, flying breathlessly from the struggle at her heart. There was nothing to cry over, she told herself again, nothing even to regret. It was her own fault, and because it was her own fault she could bear it quietly as she should have borne the joy.
She had reached the spot where he had lifted her upon the wall, and leaning against the rough stones she looked southward to where the swelling meadows dipped into the projecting line of hills. He was before her then, as he always would be, and shrinking back, she put up her hand to shut out the memory of his eyes. She could have hated that shallow gayety, she told herself, but for the tenderness that lay beneath it—since jest as he might at his own scars, when had he ever made mirth of another's? Had she not seen him fight the battles of free Levi? and when Aunt Rhody's cabin was in flames did he not bring out one of the negro babies in his coat? That dare-devil courage which had first caught her girlish fancy, thrilled her even to-day as the proof of an ennobling purpose. She remembered that he had gone whistling into the burning cabin, and coming out again had coolly taken up the broken air; and to her this inherent recklessness was clothed with the sublimity of her own ideals.
The cold wind had stiffened her limbs, and she ran back into the road and walked on rapidly. Beyond the whitened foldings of the mountains a deep red glow was burning in the west, and she wanted to hold out her hands to it for warmth. Her next thought was that a winter sunset soon died out, and as she turned quickly to go homeward, she saw that she was before Aunt Ailsey's cabin, and that the little window was yellow from the light within.
Aunt Ailsey had been dead for years, but the free negro Levi had moved into her hut, and as Betty looked up she saw him standing beneath the blasted oak, with a bundle of brushwood upon his shoulder. He was an honest-eyed, grizzled-haired old negro, who wrung his meagre living from a blacksmith's trade, bearing alike the scornful pity of his white neighbours and the withering contempt of his black ones. For twenty years he had moved from spot to spot along the turnpike, and he had lived in the dignity of loneliness since the day upon which his master had won for himself the freedom of Eternity, leaving to his servant Levi the labour of his own hands.
As the girl spoke to him he answered timidly, fingering the edge of his ragged coat.
Yes, he had managed to keep warm through the winter, and he had worn the red flannel that she had given him.
“And your rheumatism?” asked Betty, kindly.
He replied that it had been growing worse of late, and with a sympathetic word the girl was passing by when some newer pathos in his solitary figure stayed her feet, and she called back quickly, “Uncle Levi, were you ever married?”
“Dar, now,” cried Uncle Levi, halting in the path while a gleam of the wistful humour of his race leaped to his eyes. “Dar, now, is you ever hyern de likes er dat? Mah'ed! Cose I'se mah'ed. I'se mah'ed quick'en Marse Bolling. Ain't you never hyern tell er Sarindy?”
“Sarindy?” repeated the girl, questioningly.
“Lawd, Lawd, Sarindy wuz a moughty likely nigger,” said Uncle Levi, proudly; “she warn' nuttin' but a fiel' han', but she 'uz a moughty likely nigger.”
“And did she die?” asked Betty, in a whisper.
Uncle Levi rubbed his hands together, and shifted the brushwood upon his shoulder.
“Who say Sarindy dead?” he demanded sternly, and added with a chuckle, “she warn' nuttin' but a fiel' han', young miss, en I 'uz Marse Bolling's body sarvent, so w'en dey sot me loose, dey des sol' Sarindy up de river. Lawd, Lawd, she warn' nuttin' but a fiel' han', but she 'uz pow'ful likely.”
He went chuckling up the path, and Betty, with a glance at the fading sunset, started briskly homeward. As she walked she was asking herself, in a wonder greater than her own love or grief, if Uncle Levi really thought it funny that they sold Sarindy up the river.