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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
was golden, and that she was very thin. That seemed enough for
the present; so I closed my eyes.
Then presently I felt someone putting something between my lips.
It was soup. And that made me laugh. I thought about the house
where I had helped myself to the soup. I had liked it better than
this—it had had more flavor.
“What are you laughing about?” asked the lady.
I felt terribly silly. I remembered something from “Alice.”
“Soup of the evening, beautiful soup,” I said. Then I laughed some
more. I couldn’t quit. Suddenly I heard a voice roaring:
“Stop that!”
So I stopped and looked to see who had spoken to me that way. It
was a tall man—a terribly tall man. The shadow of him ran along
the floor for yards and doubled up on the ceiling.
“Who are you?” I asked. I was quite angry.
Then he bowed—and you ought to have seen that shadow bow at
the same time. It was the funniest thing, and it nearly set me off
again, but I crumpled up the sheet in my hands and squeezed it as
hard as I could to keep from giggling.
“David Knox,” said the gentleman, “who was unfortunate enough to
be the cause of all of your trouble.”
“I am glad to meet you,” I said politely. His bow was so nice I
forgave him for yelling: “Stop that!”
“Lorena,” he said under his voice, “I think everything is going to be
all right.”
Now you wouldn’t think that remark would make me laugh, would
you? Oh, Carin, I’m so ashamed of it, now I remember. But I began
to sing:
“‘The years roll slowly by, Lorena,’” and then when I couldn’t think of
the next line I cried: “Why doesn’t somebody tell me what comes
next?”
Well, they told me if I didn’t keep still they would go out and leave
me alone. I didn’t want to be left alone, because just then I took a
sort of turn and was afraid to sink down into that gray, still place
where I had been. So I said:
“Oh, please stay, please stay, and I will tell you why I laughed at the
soup.”
So before they could stop me I had told them about it.
“Some day,” I said, “I am going back and call on that woman. I will
give her some patterns for weaving, and maybe she will have some
old, old ones that she will give me.”
“Can you weave?” asked the lady. “You are very young and—and
not a mountain girl, are you?”
“Oh, I’m a mountain girl,” I said, remembering back just as far as
dear Mother McBirney and the cabin with my bedroom in the loft.
“I’m Azalea McBirney of Tennyson Mountain, and I’m—I’m a weaver.”
“Azalea,” murmured the lady. “That was the name of poor Jack’s
wife, wasn’t it? I always thought it a sweet name.”
Something shot through my brain. It was like a stroke of lightning.
It was the strangest thing that ever happened to me. In a second,
by some power I can’t explain, I began to know things. I saw them
as if they were a vision. I sat right up in bed, and pushed my hair
back from my face. I recollect that I kept pushing it back and
pushing it back, as if it got in between me and what I wanted to
understand.
“What Jack? What Jack?” I demanded.
“Jack Knox, my dead brother,” said the man soothingly. “No one you
know I am sure, my dear. Don’t excite yourself, please.”
“Jack Knox! Jack Knox!” I said. “That was the man that married my
little mama and left her to care for me alone. Jack Knox! No, I
don’t know him. I don’t remember him at all. And I’m glad of it.
Jack Knox! Jack Knox!”
You know it isn’t like me, Carin, to feel angry at anyone. But my
mind seemed to have no resistance. Whatever idea got into it
insisted on raging around in it. I couldn’t stop it. I was ashamed,
and yet I couldn’t manage myself.
I felt the lady, Mrs. Knox, taking hold of me with those long, soft,
cool hands of hers and forcing me back on the bed.
“Lie still,” she begged. “Do lie still, Miss Azalea. You mustn’t care
about anything. No one shall do you any harm, and we’ll not even
let troublesome ideas come near you if we can help it.”
“Did you not say,” said the gentleman, “that your name was
McBirney?”
“Yes, yes, McBirney. Don’t you know Ma and Pa McBirney? Why,
everyone knows them. They take orphans in. At least they took me
in. They would have taken my little mama in, only she was dead, so
they put her beneath the Pride of India tree beside their own Molly.
You can go see for yourself. You will know the house by the Pride of
India tree and the gourds before the door. The gourds are for the
martins—dozens and dozens of martins. The martins will show you
the way if you like. Or the bees—thousands of bees.”
“Hush, hush,” whispered the lady. “David, go and take the light.
Hush, Azalea, hush. It is all right. Your little mama would want you
to hush.”
She began singing the song with her own name in it.
“The years roll slowly by, Lorena.”
I went to sleep. But this time it was different. I did not seem to be
sinking into that chilly gray place where the visions were. I just
went to sleep the way I ought.
The next morning when I awoke I was quite sensible and calm. I
saw the world as it was, and remembered all my life, and knew that
I had come by a strange, strange chance, among my dead father’s
people. David Knox was his elder brother, and Lorena Knox, with
her yellow hair and her long cool hands, was David’s wife. It made
me deeply satisfied—not exactly happy, but deeply satisfied.
I ate the breakfast they brought me, and after a while I was taken
out into the sitting room. It was a beautiful room, large and square
and quiet, with a great fireplace of gray stone, and more little
uncurtained windows looking out at the green and purple world. So
then I sat up and looked at these people.
“I have never before seen anyone save my little poor mama who
belonged to me,” I said. “It is very strange, to be here with you.”
“Do you like it?” asked Mrs. Knox.
“I am a little afraid,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I want you to like me and I am afraid you may not.”
“Oh, but why? We already do!”
“Do you? Oh, I’m glad. Life has been—”
“How has it been?”
“Lonesome, sometimes. Interesting, of course, and nice, but
lonesome. I was always taking favors from other people. I had no
one of my own. There was only—only the Pride of India tree with
mama under it. I used to go out and talk to it, but—”
“Hush,” said the lady. “Do not weep, Azalea. Save all your strength
for our sakes. I cannot doubt that what you tell me is true. I want
you to see something.”
She brought me a little album open at the face of a young man.
Carin, darling, when I looked at it, I knew it was the face of my
father. It was like my own face, only a man’s and bolder. And yet,
so like!
“My father!” I said. “I never saw his face before.”
“It is wonderfully like your own,” said Mr. Knox. “And now you must
call me your Uncle David, Azalea; and you must call my dear wife
your Aunt Lorena. Remember, you must never feel lonely any more.”
Then I suddenly thought of Mother McBirney waiting for me, and
watching and watching the road, and praying and wondering, and I
cried out:
“Oh, my dear Mother McBirney! I can never leave her—never!”
“But someone else has a claim on you now,” said my Uncle David.
Carin, think of having a right really to write that: “My Uncle David!”
“Yes, I know, but—”
“I do not mean your Aunt Lorena and myself,” he said. “I mean that
you have a grandmother and that it will be the happiest hour of her
old age when she takes the daughter of her favorite son in her
arms.”
“Not a grandmother? A grandmother of my own?”
“Indeed you have, and a very wonderful and proud old lady she is.
The grief of her life was the waywardness of her son. She cannot
realize that he is dead. We have to watch her lest she steal out to
meet him in secret as she did in the old days when his father turned
him from home. She used to creep from the house to meet him and
to take him money, for she lived in the light of his handsome
countenance. So it is your duty, Azalea, to go to her.”
“A grandmother,” I said, “of my very own!”
It seemed wonderful—like having a mother, only more majestic. I
can’t explain what I felt.
And I can’t write any more just now, darling Carin. My aunt has
kept warning me that I must put my pen down. So I obey. Another
day you shall know the rest.
As always,
Azalea.
 CHAPTER III
OWN FOLK

“Little Windows,” Mount Hebron,

October 22nd.
Carin dear:
I was not quite so well after writing you. Aunt Lorena says I mustn’t
write so much at one time again till I am stronger. This is just to say
that Mother McBirney has been sent for, though I can’t see how she
is to leave home. Who will look after the men? Oh, how I am
needed in that little house! And here I lie in this beautiful room,
idle, of no use to anyone. And so sleepy! I never dreamed anyone
could be so sleepy.
When I dream now, it is all about my grandmother. To think of an
own grandmother! In my dreams she comes creeping softly into the
room and strokes my hair. I do not believe a word they say about
her being proud. I am sure she is gentle. At least, her dream-hand
on my head is so.
I am writing to Mary Cecily Rowantree, and she can send the letter
on to Keefe O’Connor—to “brother” as she always calls him. Have
you noticed that she almost never speaks his name? That is, I
suppose, because he does not bear the one that was given him
when he was christened. What a strange story is his!
Good-bye, yellow-haired one,
 Azalea.

October 24th.
Dear old Carin:
Mother McBirney has come. I have been alone with her. Of course
she had been told everything by Uncle David on the way over.
“Mother-heart, mother-heart,” I said to her, “tell me what I shall do.
Here we are alone, we two, and no one is listening. Whatever you
decide on shall be done. No matter what anyone says, we shall do
it.”
“Zalie,” she said in that lovely drawling voice of hers, “I reckon the
time has come for me and you to go our separate ways.”
“Mother, do you know what I have been told? I am rich. I shall
have money to spend. All at once, in one lump, right now, I can
have the money that would have been mine all during the years
since my father died. I have asked them, and they say that though I
am not of age, I may do what I please with that money. So,
mother-heart, you and Father McBirney can go to the Springs, and
Jim can go to school. You can rent out the horses and the cattle or
sell them. Perhaps Annie Laurie will add them to her stock. You can
sell the chickens and the bees, or take them to Annie Laurie’s too.”
“Oh, Zalie,” cried Ma, “how can you go on talking about chickens and
bees?”
“Because,” said I, “sooner or later that is what the three of you will
sit up late at night talking about. I’m trying to arrange it so that you
will not say ‘no.’ For I can’t stand it to have Father McBirney
suffering the way he is, and you going sad and poor and Jim not
having school. I knew all the time that I couldn’t stand it—that I’d
have to do something about it. And now here, along comes
Accident—whom I shall make my goddess—and she brings me
among my own folk, and gives me a fortune.”
“And parts us, Zalie.”
“No, Mother McBirney. I say no! You shall go to the Springs, you
shall see Father get well. I shall visit you from time to time. Then
you will go back to your own home, perhaps, and some day I shall
build on that lovely spot on the little bench, halfway up the
mountain-side. You remember that place with the three great tulip
trees and the spring of cold water? I’ll build me a little house there,
and all the mountain people and all the valley people shall visit me.
It will be near you, so that every time you go to town you will be
obliged to stop and have something to eat and to get a drink at my
spring. You shall not lose me, no, no, no.”
I gave her such a hug that she gasped. Though she is so gentle I
think she always rather liked my fierce ways.
“Will you be living in that house alone, Zalie?” she asked me, looking
just like Jim when he teases. And though there wasn’t a thing to
make me blush—not one thing—I got to blushing and couldn’t stop.
I was perfectly furious with myself. How is it that sensible people
are sometimes so silly?
“Mother McBirney,” I said at last, “is it nice of you to peer into the
future like that? Don’t you think you are prying and—and—”
She wouldn’t let me finish. Anyway, I didn’t know how to finish.
“Don’t you do some of that kind of prying yourself?” she asked.
Would you have thought Ma McBirney could have been so naughty?
You will remember, Carin, that when your dear father and mother
asked me to live with them and be a sister to you, I refused because
I could not bring myself to leave Mother McBirney. But then she was
all sore and suffering from the loss of her Molly; she had done the
one wild and lawless thing of her life in stealing me from the terrible
people who claimed me. I had to stay with her then. But now I am
a young woman. I must make my own way, and I must help the
McBirney family. Moreover, the people who now take me are my
kin. In going with them I do my duty to my own family, to my
grandmother; I can make amends to her for all my father made her
suffer. Do you not see how different it is?
I explained it all to Mother McBirney. She is reconciled—very quiet
and rather strange, but reconciled. She will get happier as time
goes on. Oh, I mean to make her very happy.
It is interesting to see her and my uncle and aunt together. My
uncle and aunt are very grand people, Carin, but they have no better
manners than little Ma McBirney. You and I always said she had the
nicest manners in the world. They begin and end with kindness, and
gentleness and thoughtfulness, and with it all, she is so self-
respectful, as if she felt it her duty to cherish her own soul and mind
and body because they were God’s gift to her.
Did I tell you that Mrs. Babb, the moon-shiner’s mother, was over
taking care of Father McBirney and Jim? That fierce mother of wild
sons! I remember describing her that way to myself long ago. But
you know how kind and nice she can be. She always was an
obliging neighbor, and so, for the matter of that, were her sons. You
have heard about the time her son set Hi Kitchell’s arm and was
good to Jim. That was when I was kidnapped, and the whole
countryside was searching for little Azalea.
The funniest thing happened to Uncle David and Mother McBirney
when they were coming over here together. Uncle David knew, of
course, about my going into the little cabin and warming myself
before the fire and helping myself to soup, so he was watching out
for the place. And sure enough he came to it, and he and Mother
McBirney went in. There were two women there, a mother and
daughter, and both were very nice looking, though one, of course,
was no longer young. They seemed different from most of the
mountaineers; not inclined to tell much about themselves. They
showed the picture of me, and they said they had enjoyed the things
I left. They talked about me quite a little, and were polite, though
cold and offish. Uncle David had his camera with him, and he
wanted to take pictures of them to bring to me, but they objected to
that. Wasn’t that queer of them? Some day I am going to call on
them, unless indeed I leave this part of the country forever and
ever. I suppose I may.
Aunt Lorena doesn’t want me to go to Mallowbanks—that is the
name of the old Knox place—all in my homespun. She wants to
dress me out as Queen Guinevere did Enid. I have asked her to
wait, but she is not very well content to do so.
“If you are presented to your grandmother in homespun,” she says,
“she will remember it to the last day of her life. Your grandmother is
very old, Azalea, so that she is inclined to pay too much attention to
little matters. She will say to everyone who comes to the house:
‘This is Azalea, the daughter of my dear Jack. She came to me in
homespun, but I have clothed her in silk—as becomes her.’ Oh, it is
so easy to imagine her saying it. Truly, she will never forget the
homespun nor let you forget it. What is worse, she will insist on
dressing you herself, and she will probably do it out of the cedar
chests in the lumber room.”
“Out of the cedar chests?” said I.
“Yes, the famous, terrible cedar chests. They are filled with loot
from all over the world—old shawls and crepes and brocades and
laces. Never was there such an expensive and unusable mess. Ever
since David married me she has wanted me to make over these
things—”
“And very lovely you would look in them,” broke in my Uncle David in
gentle rebuke.
“Lovely, indeed,” cried Aunt Lorena. “I would look like a romantic
scarecrow. No, David, the ladies who wore those gowns dressed in
the fashion of their day, and I mean to dress in the fashion of mine.
I warn Azalea right now that if she doesn’t let me send to Charleston
for fit and proper clothing for her, she’ll be wearing those stiff old
things to the day of her—marriage.”
“Oh, I’d be certain to have my wedding dress made out of the
chests, I should think,” I said, perfectly delighted with the idea.
“Hasn’t grandmother saved her wedding dress?”
“Of course she has, and her wedding chemise and slippers and veil
and fan.”
“Oh,” I cried, “just let me lie still and think about it awhile. Isn’t it
like a fairy tale?”
So I did. I lay still quite a while looking at the fire, and wondering if
it could be true that I, Azalea Knox, who had believed myself to be
little more than a waif, was coming into a home all mellow and
beautiful with old customs and memories and loves—and hates, too,
I suppose. Then I seemed to feel that something was wrong, and
looking up I saw my new Uncle David frowning at me—distinctly
frowning.
So I said:
“Why do you frown, Uncle David?”
And he said:
“Why are you so interested in bridal dresses?”
“Aren’t all girls interested in bridal dresses?”
“Not when they are infants like yourself, miss.”
“I am eighteen and over,” I said. “If you don’t have daydreams
when you are eighteen, when will you have them?”
“True for you, Azalea,” cried my aunt with her high laugh. “Pay no
attention to him. I was just turned seventeen when we became
engaged.”
“The circumstances were peculiar,” said my uncle, rather red in the
face.
“They were,” said my aunt. “You wanted me, and you were afraid I
might—want someone else.”
“But we waited,” said my uncle, “a long, long time.”
“Two years and three months,” said my aunt.
“Few, however, would be justified in marrying so young,” said my
uncle. “But we were peculiarly suited to each other. Both families
approved. You, my dear Azalea, have not been so situated as to see
much of people in your own station of life, so it will probably be
many years before you will have any occasion to ask my mother for
her old white satin wedding gown.”
I said nothing at all but just smiled at the fire. I could feel Uncle
David still watching me. At last he said:
“Why are you smiling?”
“I am happy.”
“Are you still thinking of the wedding gown?”
“Only vaguely.”
“Azalea, have you any secret to tell us?”
“None.”
“Could Mrs. McBirney throw any light on that peculiar smile of
yours?”
“Ask her.”
But would dear old Ma go back on me? You know she would not.
“Zalie is like my Jim,” she drawled, “a good deal of a tease.”
I threw her a kiss. And Uncle David shook his fist at me.
Ah, Carin, why are you not here? Why can we not slip in bed side
by side each night as we used up at Sunset Gap? I have so many
things to tell you, and I cannot begin to make them clear merely
writing them like this. Though I find I like to write. I have been
reading and reading for years and thinking how hard it must be to
write, and now, for the first time, I am really trying my hand at it,
and I find it about as easy as breathing. Of course, writing to you,
who understand me and my ways so well, makes it particularly
easy. I do not say that I would dare to write for strangers or that I
would like to do it. And yet, I wonder, Carin, if one were to write a
book just as if one were talking to a friend, showing all one’s heart
and counting on the readers to understand and sympathize, if it
would not be a good book.
A book has to be human to be good, doesn’t it? And writing that
way, frankly, even lovingly, I may say, letting people feel that you
who are writing are really a friend, although unknown, would make
a book human, wouldn’t it?
I suppose there are a great many lonely folk in the world who have
not had the good fortune to make friends, or even to find their own
home, in any true and deep sense of the word, and that to such, a
friendly book is a great boon. It is something to take down off the
shelf at night in the quiet hours, and to read over and over again. It
helps them to forget their troubles and even themselves, and they
go to bed comforted and warmed at the heart, remembering that
the old world is a pretty kind and genial place after all.
If I could write, it is such a book as that which I would choose to
make. And do you know, the last few days as I have been lying
here thinking and thinking, I’ve wondered if I might not write a
little. It would do such pleasant things to my life. It would be like
planting little gardens of flowers all about me. Haven’t we a right to
plant flowers if we have a taste for them? Planting flowers and
writing, like everything else that one does, is largely a matter of
habit, don’t you think so?
To-morrow Mother McBirney is going home. Uncle David is going to
take her. She is to close up the house, send Jim to school, and
betake herself and Father McBirney to Bethal Springs for the winter.
Uncle David has written down to engage a cosy little furnished
cottage for them. He has given me a check for them. I am very
happy, Carin.
I told you I was going to make Accident my goddess. I like
Accident. Just turning around the corner may bring one face to face
with—with something glorious. I feel all the time now as if
something delightful and surprising were going to happen.
Lovingly,
Your Azalea.
* * * * * * * * *
“Little Windows,” Oct. 29.
Carin, we are off. The “little windows” are all boarded up. The
servants have been driven to the station. Outside the door the
touring car is standing, silent but eager. I swear it looks eager, and
that I am horribly afraid of it. I expect to have a chill. My teeth
chatter at this moment at the thought of riding in that long, raging,
rushing thing around these winding mountain roads. I feel as if this
might be the last letter I shall ever write to you. I said I loved
Accident, but that depends on how she looks. To-day I do not like
the looks of her. I cut her acquaintance. If you never hear from me
again, remember how I loved you.
Aunt Lorena and Uncle David are putting the last touches to things,
and I am sitting on the porch scribbling in my notebook. From here
we can see thirty peaks and many valleys and rivers. The rivers are
silver threads in the purple distance, winding and winding. There is
an eagle just above the house, probably come to see that we get
safely away. I wish he would teach me how to fly so that I wouldn’t
have to ride in that terrible machine.
The only thing that cheers me up is the thought that I am really
going home. After so many homeless years, or years in which I had
a home only by the kindness of others, I am going to my own home,
to my own grandmother, blood of my blood, the mother of my
father.
Do you suppose those who love us and are dead, know what is
happening to us? Is my own little mother seeing me this day? Is
she glad I am going to the home which never opened its doors to
her? Am I loyal to her in going? These questions are too hard for
me to answer. I only know that my uncle and aunt would be
shocked and deeply offended if I did not go with them, and I
remember that to the last my mother loved my father.
When she lay dead that day in dear Mother McBirney’s house, they
found in the leather pocket book she carried, a little piece of dark
hair which must have been his, with her “wedding lines,” as Mother
McBirney called them, and a little blurred picture which was, no
doubt, of him. But her tears or the rain had dimmed it so we could
barely see it.
Your letter was brought me last night, Carin, and was the greatest
sort of a comfort. Oh, I knew you would understand.
Aren’t you taking too many studies? You mustn’t wear yourself out.
Never forget that you are going to be an artist and that you have to
consider your talent above everything else. So be careful not to use
yourself up on mathematics and physics and all those things.
I am glad you are having some good times. That young man who
sent you flowers is a Southerner, is he? From Charleston? Why
didn’t you tell me his name? Perhaps I shall be meeting him. For I
am to meet people. I mean, I am to meet them the way you do.
Aunt Lorena will give a “coming out” party for me. It rather amuses
me. Poor Azalea, with her boots covered with red mud and her
hands scratched with briars and burned with cooking and pricked
with sewing, and her hair tumbled every which way, Azalea who can
whistle through her fingers as well as Jim or Hi or any of the boys,
who can climb a fence in a jiffy and shin up a tree if necessary, to
stand all perfumed and proper, in a wonderful old drawing-room,
saying: “Thank you, madam, you are very good to say so.” “Thank
you, sir, indeed I am very much honored to meet my grandmother’s
old friends.” Can you hear me? I wish you could in reality. Perhaps
I can get my aunt to put off the party till Thanksgiving. If so, could
you dash down to Mallowbanks? It is not far from Charleston. You
could take a few extra days from college, couldn’t you?
The very thought of it puts new courage into me. You will find my
new address within. Write me at once. I shall insist that Annie
Laurie come to my party also. What a reunion that would be! To
have the old friends and the new together would be something to
remember always.
Maybe the young-man-who-sent-the-roses will be home for
Thanksgiving. Then he could come too, and I would see if he was
nice enough to—to be allowed to send you roses.
Do you suppose Keefe could come? But he wouldn’t, would he? At
least, not unless I got an order for him to paint a portrait. And how
could I do that? But maybe I can insist that he shall paint a portrait
of my grandmother for me. My own grandmother!
There, Uncle David is cranking that terrible machine. I must go.
Carin, we who go to die salute thee!
I will you my amber beads.
Tremblingly,
Azalea.
 CHAPTER IV
MADAM GRANDMOTHER

Mallowbanks, Brent County, S. C.,

November first.
Poor neglected Carin:
I know it, Carin. I know I have treated you badly. I know that you
have been expecting and wondering and scolding because I have
not written.
But when you say that I have forgotten you because of my new
friends, well—I haven’t any answer to that. Nothing pleasant ever
happens to me that I do not wish you were with me to share it, and
nothing bad ever happens that I do not think in the midst of all my
trouble:
“I will make a story out of that to tell to Carin and—well, Annie
Laurie or any other person whom I love.”
But you first, Carin.
As you may have guessed, we got here alive. I was really very
much surprised. Between shivers and shudders I enjoyed the ride
tremendously. We had two days and a half of it, sleeping at night in
inns where my uncle and aunt were welcomed very warmly, and
where everybody marveled over me very much as they did in the old
days when Mother McBirney first took me over and carried me with
her everywhere to exhibit me so lovingly and triumphantly.
Only this time there were differences; very great differences. I soon
realized that to be the daughter of the house of Knox was no small
matter, and though I had insisted on keeping to my homespun, and
still do think it very nice, I was a trifle worried about it. But my
riding suit is well cut, and it fits like a dream, and the homespun is
almost as soft as camel’s hair, and the color of it, a bottle green,
becomes me very well. I was wearing the little dark green Alpine
hat you brought me from Switzerland, and that was becoming too.
Yet, girl-o’-my-heart, I felt frightened and insignificant enough when,
having passed by way of many charming old towns and wide
plantations, we came at last to the long, shady road which they told
me belonged to the Knox estate. The part we passed through was
all in fine old trees, not so near together but that the sun could
make bright carpets in between them. Here and there, where the
ground lifted, we could see the plantations, now of course in their
autumn bareness, stretching in three directions.
I have always loved to read about princes and princesses who have
wandered, poor and forlorn, in strange lands, and who finally return
to their royal homes and live happy ever after amid a loving people.
I think that is the nicest sort of a story in the world, and I often have
played, when it was cold and windy in my little loft on Tennyson
Mountain, and when Jim teased me, and all the family was looking
at something in a different way from what I was able to do, that I
was a lost princess and that by and by I would come into my own.
But I never really thought it anything but a silly, silly dream. I
played with it as I used, a few years before, to play with paper dolls.
Yet here I was, Carin, being swept up to the door of my ancestral
mansion. We turned a bend in the road, and then saw the house
across a stretch of lawn. It was all dripping with Virginia creeper;
the leaves hung red as flame from the hooded windows, and
bannerets of the scarlet vine fluttered from the wide door. Did uncle
tell me the house was Georgian in its style? I do not remember. At
any rate, it is of old-rose brick and “I am glad, mother,” said, as
mellow as a soft sunset. There are six hooded windows and the
beautiful door down below, and seven windows above; then at each
end of the main part of the building is an L, running obliquely out
into the lawn, and here, too, are the hooded windows above, but
below are galleries, and they are roofed in some places and
uncovered in others, so that you can stay under cover if you like, or
right out under the stars.
I found myself clasping my hands tight over my heart as I looked.
“Do you like it, dear?” asked Aunt Lorena gently.
I seized her hand.
“Oh, Aunt Lorena, did you come here a bride? Did Uncle David bring
you here? Had you ever seen it before?”
“I had known it ever since I was a child, but notwithstanding that,
the day I entered it and knew it for my own to live in was one of the
happiest of my life.”
“All on account of the house, I suppose,” growled Uncle David from
the front seat of the car. Aunt Lorena laughed like a bird and said
nothing.
“Oh, the years must have rolled sweetly by, Lorena,” said I under my
breath.
She smiled at me beautifully, and then we got out of the car, and
there were people running from out of the house and from around
the house to help us—kind, affectionate, capable black people,
happy and well placed.
They all looked at me, open-eyed, like children, and they bowed and
smiled, but all the time I could see they were wondering. Then
Uncle David took me by the hand and led me up the steps and
turned with me and said:
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