Lewis Rand
By Mary Johnston

Chapter XII: A Marriage At Saint Margaret’s

“Yes,” said Unity. “That is just what the Argus says. ’On Thursday M. Jérôme Buonaparte, the younger brother of the First Consul, passed through Annapolis with his bride–lately the lively and agreeable Miss Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore. M. Buonaparte’s Secretary and Physician followed in a chaise, and the valets and femmes-de-chambrein a coach. The First Consul’s brother wore–’ I protest I don’t care what the First Consul’s brother wore! The Argus is not gallant. If you were the First Consul’s brother–”

“The Argus should describe the bride’s dress, not mine,” said Fairfax Cary. “How lovely you would look, in that gown you have on, in a curricle drawn by grey horses! What is the stuff–roses and silver?”

“Heigho!” sighed Unity. “’Tis a bridesmaid’s gown. I am out with men. I shall never wear a bride’s gown.”

“Don’t jest–”

“Jest! I never felt less like jesting! I laugh to keep from crying. Here is the coach.”

The great Fontenoy coach with the Churchill arms on the panel drew up before the porch. It was drawn by four horses, and driven by old Philip in a wig and nosegay. Mingo was behind, and Phyllis’s Jim and a little darky ran alongside to open the door and let down the steps. “All alone in that!” exclaimed Cary. “I shall ride with you as far as the old road to Greenwood. Don’t say no! I’ll hold your flowers.”

Unity looked down upon the roses in her arms. “They should all be white,” she said. “I feel as though I were going to see them bury Jacqueline.” Her voice broke, but she bit her lip, forced back the tears, and tried to laugh. “I’m not. I’m going to her wedding–and people know their own business best–and she may be as happy as the day is long! He is fascinating,–he is dreadfully fascinating,–and we have no right to say he is not good–and everybody knows he is going to be great! Why shouldn’t she be happy?”

“I don’t know,” answered Cary. “But I know she won’t be.”

“You say that,” cried Unity, turning on him, “because you are a Federalist! Well, women are neither Federalists nor Republicans! They have no party and no soul of their own! They are just what the person they love is–”

“That’s not so,” said Cary.

“Oh, I know it’s not so!” agreed Miss Dandridge, with impatience. “It’s just one of those things that are said! But it remains that Jacqueline must be happy. I’ll break my heart if she’s not! And as long as I live, I’ll say that Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward are to blame–”

“Where are they?”

“Oh, Uncle Dick is in the long field watching the threshing, and Uncle Edward is in the library reading Swift! And Aunt Nancy has ordered black scarfs to be put above the pictures of Uncle Henry and of Great-Aunt Jacqueline that Jacqueline’s named for. Oh, oh!”

“And Deb?” asked the young man gently.

“Deb is at Cousin Jane Selden’s. She has been there with Jacqueline a week–she and Miranda. Oh, I know–Uncle Dick is a just man! He does what he thinks is the just thing. Deb shall go visit her sister–every now and then! And all that Uncle Henry left Jacqueline goes with her–there are slaves and furniture and plate, and she has money, too. The Rands don’t usually marry so well–There! I, too, am bitter! But Uncle Dick swears that he will never see Jacqueline again–and all the Churchills keep their word. Oh, family quarrels! Deb’s coming back to Fontenoy to-morrow–poor little chick! Aunt Nancy’s got to have those mourning scarfs taken away before she comes!”

Miss Dandridge descended the porch steps to the waiting coach. The younger Cary handed her in with great care of her flowers and gauzy draperies, and great reluctance in relinquishing her hand. “I may come too?” he asked, “just as far as the old Greenwood road? I hate to see you go alone.”

“Oh, yes, yes!” answered Miss Dandridge absently, and, sinking into a corner, regarded through the window the July morning. “Those black scarfs hurt me,” she said, and the July morning grew misty. “It’s not death to marry the man one loves!”

The coach rolled down the drive to the gate, and out upon the sunny road. The dust rose in clouds, whitening the elder, the stickweed, and the blackberry bushes. The locusts shrilled in the parching trees. The sky was cloudless and intensely blue, marked only by the slow circling of a buzzard far above the pine-tops. There were many pines, and the heat drew out their fragrance, sharp and strong. The moss that thatched the red banks was burned, and all the ferns were shrivelling up. Everywhere butterflies fluttered, lizards basked in the sun, and the stridulation of innumerable insects vexed the ear. The way was long, and the coach lumbered heavily through the July weather. “I do not want to talk,” sighed Unity. “My heart is too heavy.”

“My own is not light,” said Cary grimly. “I am sorry for my brother.”

“We are all sorry for your brother,” Unity answered gently, and then would speak no more, but sat in her silver and roses, looking out into the heat and light. The Greenwood road was reached in silence. Cary put his head out of the window and called to old Philip. The coach came slowly to a stop before a five-barred gate. Mingo opened the door, and the young man got out. “Unless you think I might go with you as far as the church–” he suggested, with his hand on the door. Unity shook her head. “You can’t do that, you know! Besides, I am going first to Cousin Jane Selden’s. Good-bye. Oh, it is going to be a happy marriage–it must be happy!”

“What is going to make it happy?” demanded Cary gloomily. “It’s a match against nature! When I think of your cousin in that old whitewashed house, and every night Gideon Rand’s ghost making tobacco around it! I am glad that Ludwell has gone to Richmond. He looks like a ghost himself.”

“Oh, the world!” sighed Unity. “Tell Philip, please, to drive on.”

“I’ll ride over to Fontenoy to-morrow,” said Fairfax Cary. “’Twill do you good to talk it over.”

The coach went heavily on through the dust of the Three-Notched Road. The locusts shrilled, the pines gave no shade, in the angle of the snake fences pokeberry and sumach drooped their dusty leaves. The light air in the pine-tops sounded like the murmur of a distant sea, too far off for coolness. Unity sighed with the oppression of it all. The flowers were withering in her lap. After a long hour the road turned, discovering yellow wheat-fields and shady orchards, the gleam of a shrunken stream and a brick house embowered in wistaria. Around the horse-block and in the shade of a great willow were standing a coach or two, a chaise, and several saddle-horses. “All of them Republican,” commented Unity.

At the door she was met by Cousin Jane Selden herself, a thin and dark old lady with shrewd eyes and a determined chin. “I’m glad to see you, Unity, though I should have been more glad to see Richard and Edward Churchill! ’Woe to a stiff-necked generation!’ says the Bible. Well! you are fine enough, child, and I honour you for it! There are a few people in the parlour–just those who go to church with us. The clock has struck, and we’ll start in half an hour. Jacqueline is in her room, and when she doesn’t look like an angel she looks like her mother. You had best go upstairs. Mammy Chloe dressed her.”

Unity mounted the dark, polished stairs to an upper hall where stood a tall clock and a spindle-legged table with a vast jar of pot-pourri. A door opened, framing Jacqueline, dressed in white, and wearing her mother’s wedding veil. “I knew your step,” she said. “Oh, Unity, you are good to come!”

In the bedroom they embraced. “Wild horses couldn’t have kept me from coming!” declared Unity with resolute gaiety. “Whichever married first, the other was to be bridesmaid!–we arranged that somewhere in the dark ages! Oh, Jacqueline, you are like a princess in a picture-book!”

“And Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward?” asked Jacqueline, in a low voice.

“Well, the Churchills are obstinate folk, as we all know!” answered Unity cheerfully. “But I think time will help. They can’t go on hating forever. Uncle Dick is in the fields, and Uncle Edward is in the library reading. There, there, honey!”

Mammy Chloe bore down upon them from the other end of the room. “Miss Unity, don’ you mek my chile cry on her weddin’ mahnin’! Hit ain’t lucky to cry befo’ de ring’s on!”

“I’m not crying, Mammy,” said Jacqueline. “I wish that I could cry. It is you, Unity, that are like a princess in your rose and silver, with your dear red lips, and your dear black eyes! Isn’t she lovely, Mammy?" She came close to her cousin and pinned a small brooch in the misty folds above the white bosom. “This is my gift–it is mother’s pearl brooch. Oh, Unity, don’t think too ill of me!”

“Think ill!” cried Unity, with spirit. “I think only good of you. I think you are doing perfectly right! I’ll wear your pearl always–you were always like a pearl to me!”

“Even pearls have a speck at heart,” said Jacqueline. “And there’s nothing perfectly right–or perfectly wrong. But most things cannot be helped. Some day, perhaps, at home–at Fontenoy–they will think of the time when they were young–and in love.” She turned and took up her gloves from the dressing-table. “I have had a letter from Ludwell Cary," she said, then spoke over her shoulder with sudden lire. “He is the only one of all I know, the only one of all my people, who has been generous enough, and just enough, to praise the man I marry!”

“Oh, Jacqueline!” cried Unity, “I will praise him to the skies, if only he will make you happy! Does not every one say that he has a great future? and surely he deserves all credit for rising as he has done–and he is most able–”

“And good,” said Jacqueline proudly. “Don’t praise him any more, Unity.” She put her hands on her cousin’s shoulders and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Now and then, my dear, will you come to see me on the Three-Notched Road? I shall have Deb one week out of six.”

“I shall come,” answered Unity. “Where is Deb?”

“She is asleep. She cried herself to sleep.”

“Chillern cry jes’ fer nothin’ at all,” put in Mammy Chloe. “Don’ you worry, honey! Miss Deb’s all right. I’s gwine wake her now, an’ wash her face, an’ slip on her li’l white dress. She’s gwine be jes’ ez peart an’ ez happy! My Lawd! Miss Deb jes’ gainin’ a brother!”

“Jacqueline,” came Cousin Jane Selden’s voice at the door. “It is almost time.”

The coach of the day was an ark in capacity, and woman’s dress as sheathlike as a candle flame. Jacqueline, Unity, Deb, Cousin Jane Selden, and a burly genial gentleman of wide family connections and Republican tenets travelled to church in the same vehicle and were not crowded. The coach was Cousin Jane Selden’s; the gentleman was of some remote kinship, and had been Henry Churchill’s schoolmate, and he was going to give Jacqueline away. He talked to Cousin Jane Selden about the possibilities of olive culture, and he showed Deb a golden turnip of a watch with jingling seals. Jacqueline and Unity sat in silence, Jacqueline’s arm around Deb. Behind their coach came the small party gathered at Mrs. Selden’s. The church was three miles down the road. It was now afternoon, and the heat lay like a veil upon wood and field and the foot-hills of the Blue Ridge. The dust rose behind the carriage, then sank upon and further whitened the milkweed and the love vine and the papaw bushes. The blaze of light, the incessant shrilling of the locusts, the shadeless pines, the drouth, the long, dusty road–all made, thought Unity, a dry and fierce monotony that seared the eyes and weighed upon the soul. She wondered of what Jacqueline was thinking.

The Church of Saint Margaret looked forth with a small, white-pillared face, from a grove of oaks. It had a flowery churchyard, and around it a white paling, keeping in the dead, and keeping out all roaming cattle. There was a small cracked bell, and the swallows forever circled above the eaves and in and out of the belfry. Without the yard, beneath the oaks, were a horserack and a shed for carriages. To-day there were horses at the rack and tied beneath the trees; coaches, chaises, and curricles, not a few, beneath the shed and scattered through the oak grove. The church within was all rustle and colour. Saint Margaret’s had rarely seen such a gathering, or such a wholly amicable one, for to-day all the pews were of one party. The wedding was one to draw the curious, the resolutely Republican, the kindred and friends of Jefferson,–who, it was known, had sent the bride a valuable present and a long letter,–the interested in Rand, the inimical, for party and other reasons, to the Churchills and the Carys. The county knew that Miss Churchill might have had Greenwood. The knowledge added piquancy to the already piquant fact that she had chosen the house on the Three-Notched Road. Colonel Churchill and Major Edward, the county knew, would not come to the wedding; neither, of course, would the two Carys; neither, it appeared, would any other Federalist. The rustling pews looked to all four corners and saw only folk of one watchword. True, under the gallery was to be seen Mr. Pincornet, fadedly gorgeous in an old green velvet, but to this English stock Mr. Pincornet might give what word he chose; he remained a French dancing master. The rustling pews nodded and smiled to each other, waiting to see Jacqueline Churchill come up the aisle in bridal lace. Under the gallery, not far from Mr. Pincornet, sat Adam Gaudylock, easy and tawny, dressed as usual in his fringed hunting-frock, with his coonskin cap in his hand, and his gun at his feet. Beside him sat Vinie Mocket, dressed in her best. Vinie’s eyes were downcast, and her hands clasped in her lap. She wondered–poor little partridge!–why she was there, why she had been so foolish as to let Mr Adam persuade her into coming Vinie was afraid she was going to cry. Yet not for worlds would she have left Saint Margaret’s; she wanted, with painful curiosity, to see the figure in bridal lace She wondered where Tom was Tom was to have joined Mr. Adam and herself an hour ago The bell began to ring, and all the gathering rustled loudly. “She’s coming–she’s coming?” whispered Vinie, and Adam, “Why, of course, of course, little partridge. Now don’t you cry–you’ll be walking up Saint Margaret’s aisle yourself some day!”

The bell ceased to ring. Lewis Rand came from the vestry and stood beside the chancel rail. A sound at the door, a universal turning as though the wind bent every flower in a garden–and Jacqueline Churchill came up the aisle between the coloured lines. Her hand was upon the arm of her father’s schoolmate; Unity and Deb followed her. Rand met her at the altar, and the old clergyman who had baptized her married them. It was over, from the “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together,” to the “Until Death shall them part!” Lewis and Jacqueline Rand wrote their names in the register, then turned to receive the congratulations of those who crowded around them, to smile, and say the expected thing. Rand stooped and kissed Deb, wrung Mrs. Selden’s hand, then held out his own to Unity with something of appeal in his gesture and his eyes. Miss Dandridge promptly laid her hand in his, and looked at him with her frank and brilliant gaze. “Now that we are cousins,” she said, “I do not find you a monster at all. Make her happy, and one day we’ll all be friends.” “I will–I will!” answered Rand, with emotion, pressed her hand warmly, and was claimed by others of his wedding guests. Jacqueline, too, had clung at first to Unity and Deb and Cousin Jane Selden, but now she also turned from the old life to the new, and greeted with a smiling face the people of her husband’s party. Many, of course, she knew; only a difference of opinion stood between them and the Churchills; but others were strangers to her–strangers and curious. She felt it in the touch of their hands, in the stare of their eyes, and her heart was vaguely troubled. She saw her old dancing master, tiptoeing on the edge of the throng, and her smile brought Mr. Pincornet, his green velvet and powdered wig, to her side. He put his hand to his heart and bowed as to a princess.

“Ha! Mr. Pincornet,” exclaimed Rand, “I remember our night at Monticello. Now I have a teacher who will be with me always!–Jacqueline, I want you to speak to my old friend, Adam Gaudylock.”

“Ah, I know Mr. Gaudylock,” answered Jacqueline, and gave the hunter both her hands. “We all know and admire and want to be friends with Adam Gaudylock!”

The picture that she made in her youth and beauty and bridal raiment was a dazzling one. Adam looked at her so fully and so long that she blushed a little. She could not read the thought behind his blue eyes. “You shall be my Queen if you like,” he said at last, and Jacqueline laughed, thinking his speech the woodsman’s attempt to say a pretty thing.

Rand drew forward with determination a small brown figure. “Jacqueline, this is another good friend of mine–Miss Lavinia Mocket, the sister of my law partner.–Vinie, Vinie, you are shyer than a partridge! You shan’t scuttle away until you have spoken to my wife!”

“Yeth, thir,” said Vinie, her hand in Jacqueline’s. “I wish you well, ma’am.”

Rand and Adam laughed. Jacqueline, with a sudden soft kindliness for the small flushed face and startled eyes, bent her flower-crowned head and kissed Vinie. “Oh!” breathed Vinie. “Yeth, yeth, Mith Jacqueline, I thertainly wish you well!”

“Where’s Tom?” asked Rand. “Tom should be here–” but Vinie had slipped from the ring about the bride. Adam followed; Mr. Pincornet had already faded away. More important folk claimed the attention of the newly wedded pair, and Mr. Mocket had not yet appeared when at last the gathering, bound for the wedding feast at Mrs. Selden’s, deserted the interior of the church and flowed out under the portico and down the steps to the churchyard and the coaches waiting in the road. Lewis and Jacqueline Rand came down the path between the midsummer flowers. They were at the gate when the sight and sound of a horse coming at a gallop along the road drew from Rand an exclamation. “Tom Mocket–and his horse in a lather! There’s news of some kind–”

It was so evident, when the horse and rider came to a stop before the church gate, that there was news of some kind, that the wedding guests, gentle and simple, left all talk and all employment to crowd the grassy space between the gate and the road and to demand enlightenment. Mocket’s horse was spent, and Mocket’s face was fiery red and eager. He gasped, and wiped his face with a great flowered handkerchief. “What is it, man?” cried a dozen voices.

Mocket rose in his stirrups and looked the assemblage over. “We’re all Republicans–hip, hip, hurrah! Eh, Lewis Rand, I’ve brought you a wedding gift! The stage had just come in–I got the news at the Eagle! Hip, hip–”

“Tom,” said Rand at his bridle rein, “you’ve been drinking. Steady, man. Now, what’s the matter?”

“A wedding gift! a wedding gift!” repeated Tom, taken with his own conceit. “And I never was soberer, gentlemen, never ’pon honour! Hip, hip, hurrah! we’re all good Republicans–but you’ll never guess the news!–The Creole’s dead!”

“No!” cried Rand.

There arose an uproar of excited voices. “Yes, yes, it’s true!” shouted Mocket. “The stage brought it. He was challenged by Aaron Burr. They met at a place named Weehawken. Burr’s first shot ended it.–Sandy’ll trouble us no more!”

“It’s rumour–”

“No, no, it’s gospel truth! There’s a messenger from the President, and letters from all quarters. He’s dead, and Burr’s in hiding! Gad! We’ll have a rouse at the Eagle to-night! Blue lights for Assumption and Funding and the Sedition Bill and Taxes and Standing Armies and the British Alliance–

     “Oh, Alexander, King of Macedon,
     Where is your namesake, Andy Hamilton?

“In a hotter place, I hope, than Saint Kitts!”

“Hush!” said Rand. “Don’t be ranting like a Mohawk! When a man’s dead, it’s time to let him rest.”

He turned to the excited throng, and as he did so, he was aware that Jacqueline was standing white and frozen, and that Unity was trying to take her hand. He felt for her an infinite tenderness, and he promised himself to give Tom Mocket an old-time rating for at least one ill-advised expression. Such wedding gifts were not for Jacqueline. But as for the news–Rand felt his cheek grow hot and his eyes glow. In all the history of the country this was the decade in which political animosity, pure and simple, went its greatest length. Each party thought of the struggle as a battlefield; the Federalist strength was already broken, and now if the leader was down, it was not in fighting and Republican nature to restrain the wild cheer for the rout that must follow. Rand was a fighter too, and a captain of fighters, and the hundred whirling thoughts, the hundred chances, the sense of victory, and the savage joy in a foe’s defeat–all the feeling that swelled his heart left him unabashed. But he thought of Jacqueline, and he tried to choose his words. There would be now, he knew, no wedding feast at Mrs. Selden’s. Randolphs, Carrs, Coles, Carters, Dabneys, Gordons, Meriwethers, and Minors–all would wish to hurry away. Plantation, office, or tavern, there would be letters waiting, journals to read, men to meet, committees, clamour, and debate. Of the ruder sort who had crowded to the church, many were already on the point of departure, mounting their horses, preparing for a race to the nearest tavern and newspaper. “Gentlemen,” exclaimed Rand, “if it’s true news–if we have indeed to deplore General Hamilton’s death–”

“’Deplore!’” cried Mocket.

“’Deplore!’” echoed bluntly a Republican of prominence. “Don’t let’s be hypocrites, Mr. Rand. We’ll leave the Federalists to ’deplore’–”

“Oh, I’ll deplore him with pleasure!” cried a third. “It won’t hurt to drop a tear–but for all that it’s the greatest news since 1800!”

“Hip, hip, hurrah!”

“Weehawken! where’s Weehawken? What’s Burr in hiding for? Can’t a gentleman fight a duel? Let him come down here, and we’ll give him a triumph!”

“’Deplore!’"–

“I chose my word badly,” said Rand, with the good-nature that always disarmed; “I shall not weep over my enemy, I only mean that I would not ignobly exult. Of course, sir, it is great news–the very greatest! And all here will now want the leisure of the day.”

“Tell them, Lewis, that I’ll excuse them,” said Cousin Jane Selden. “We won’t have a feast on the day of a funeral.”

A little later, deep in the embrace of the old Selden coach, husband and wife began their journey to the house on the Three-Notched Road. In the minutes that followed the disposal of their wedding guests it had been settled that they would not return to Mrs. Selden’s–it was best to go home instead. Cousin Jane would take Deb; Unity must return at once to Fontenoy. Hamilton and Edward Churchill had served together on Washington’s staff; of late years they had seldom met, but the friendship remained. Unity knew, but would not speak of it, that Uncle Edward had finished, only the night before, a long letter to his old comrade-at-arms. With the exception of Deb, all the little party were aware that Jacqueline Rand’s chances for forgiveness from her uncles were measurably slighter for this day’s tidings. She seemed dazed, pale as her gown, but very quiet. She held Deb in her arms, and kissed Unity and Cousin Jane Selden. Her husband lifted her into the coach, wrung the others’ hands, and followed her. “Good-bye, Lewis,” said Mrs. Selden at the door. “I’ll send a bowl of arrack to your men, and I’ll ride over to-morrow to see Jacqueline. Good-bye, children, and God bless you both!”

The coach and four took the dusty road. A turn, and Saint Margaret’s was hidden, another, and they were in a wood of beech and maple. The heat of the day was broken, and a wind was blowing. Rand took Jacqueline’s hands, unclasped and chafed them. “So cold!” he said. “Why could we not have heard this news to-morrow!”

She shuddered strongly. “The noble–the great–” her voice broke.

“Is it so you think of him?” he asked. “Well–I, too, will call him noble and great–to-day.

     “No more for him the warmth of the bright sun;
     Nor blows upon his brow the wind of night!

“He’s gone–and we all shall go. But this is our wedding day. Let us forget–let us forget all else but that!”

“I grieve for the country,” she said.

He kissed her hand. “Poor country! But her Sons die every day. She is like Nature–she takes no heed. Let us, too, forget!”

“Oh, his poor wife–”

Rand drew her to him. “Will you mourn for me when I am dead?”

“No,” she answered. “We will die together.–Oh, Lewis, Lewis, Lewis!”

“You promised that you would be happy,” he said, and kissed her. “You promised you would not let Fontenoy and the things of Fontenoy stand like a spectre between us. Forget this, too. Everywhere there is dying. But it is our wedding day–and I love you madly–and life and the kingdoms of life lie before us! If you are not happy, how can I be so?”

“But I am!” she cried, and showed him a glowing face. “I am happier than the happiest!”

The wood thinned into glades where the shadows of beech and maple were beginning to be long upon the grass; then, in the afternoon light, the coach entered open country, fields of ox-eyed daisies, and tall pine trees standing singly.

“I never came this far,” said Jacqueline. “I never saw the house.”

“It is there where the smoke rises beyond that tobacco-field,” answered Rand. “All the tobacco shall be changed into wheat.”

They came in sight of the house,–a long storey-and-a-half structure of logs, with two small porches and a great earthen chimney. Pine trees gave a scanty shade. House and outbuildings and fencing had all been freshly whitewashed; over the porches flourished morning-glory and Madeira vines, and the little yard was bright with hollyhock and larkspur. Jacqueline put her hand in her husband’s. Rand bent and kissed it with something in touch and manner formal and chivalrous. “It is a poor house for you. Very soon I shall build you a better.”

“I want no better,” she answered. “Have you not lived here all these years?”

“Adam called you Queen. You should have a palace–”

“If I am Queen, then you must be a King. I think it is a lovely palace. What is that tree by the gate–all feathery pink?”

“A mimosa. Mr. Jefferson gave it to me. It is like you–it does not belong on the Three-Notched Road. It should stand in a palace garden with dim alleys, fountains, and orange groves.” He ended in a deeper tone, “Why not? One day we may plant a mimosa in such a garden, and smile and say, ’Do you remember the tree–do you remember our wedding day?’ Who knows–who knows?”

“You shall stay in that palace all alone,” said Jacqueline. “I like this one best.”

The house stood back from the road in its clump of pines. The coach stopped, and Rand and Jacqueline, descending, crossed a strip of short grass tufted with fennel and velvet mullein to the gate beneath the mimosa, entered the gay little yard, and moved up the path to the larger of the two porches. They were at home. On the porch to welcome them they found the white man who worked on shares and oversaw the farm, Joab and three other slaves of Rand’s, Mammy Chloe, Hannah, and the negro men who belonged to Jacqueline. These gave a noisy greeting. Rand put money into the hands of the slaves and sent them away happy to the tumble-down quarter behind the house. The white man took his leave, and Mammy Chloe and Hannah retired to the kitchen, where supper was in preparation. Rand and Jacqueline entered together the clean, bare rooms.

Later, when Hannah’s supper had been praised and barely touched, the two came again to the porch, and presently, hand in hand, moved down the steps, and over the dry summer grass to the mimosa at the gate. Here they turned, and in the gathering dusk looked back at the house, the sleeping pines, and all the shadowy surrounding landscape.

“Hear the frogs in the marsh!” said Rand. “They are excited to-night. They know I have brought a princess home.”

“Listen to the cow-bells,” she said. “I love to hear them, faint and far like that. I love to think of you, a little barefoot boy, bringing home the cows–and never, never dreaming once of me!”

“When could that have been?” he asked. “I have always dreamed of you–even when ’twas pain to dream!–There is the first whip-poor-will. Whip-poor-will! Once it had the loneliest sound! The moon is growing brighter. The dark has come.”

“I love you, Lewis.”

“Darling, darling! Listen! that is the night horn. The lights are out in the quarter. Do you hear the stream–our stream–hurrying past the apple tree? It is hurrying to the sea–the great sea. We’ve put out to sea together–you and I, just you and I!”

“Just you and I!” she echoed. “Oh, bliss to be together!”

“Let us go,” he whispered. “Let us go back to the house,” and with his arm around her, they moved up the path between the flowers that had closed with the night.

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