ow why you think that? Because you've never had
anybody really good to you. That's why."

"But they treat me good."

"They make a slave of you. Regular slave." He puffed, frowning. "Damned
shame, _I_ call it," he said.

Her loyalty stirred Lulu. "We have our whole living----"

"And you earn it. I been watching you since I been here. Don't you ever
go anywheres?"

She said: "This is the first place in--in years."

"Lord. Don't you want to? Of course you do!"

"Not so much places like this----"

"I see. What you want is to get away--like you'd ought to." He regarded
her. "You've been a blamed fine-looking woman," he said.

She did not flush, but that faint, unsuspected Lulu spoke for her:

"You must have been a good-looking man once yourself."

His laugh went ringing across the water. "You're pretty good," he said.
He regarded her approvingly. "I don't see how you do it," he mused,
"blamed if I do."

"How I do what?"

"Why come back, quick like that, with what you say."

Lulu's heart was beating painfully. The effort to hold her own in talk
like this was terrifying. She had never talked in this fashion to any
one. It was as if some matter of life or death hung on her ability to
speak an alien tongue. And yet, when she was most at loss, that other
Lulu, whom she had never known anything about, seemed suddenly to speak
for her. As now:

"It's my grand education," she said.

She sat humped on the log, her beautiful hair shining in the light of
the warm sky. She had thrown off her hat and the linen duster, and was
in her blue gingham gown against the sky and leaves. But she sat
stiffly, her feet carefully covered, her hands ill at ease, her eyes
rather piteous in their hope somehow to hold her vague own. Yet from her
came these sufficient, insouciant replies.

"Education," he said laughing heartily. "That's mine, too." He spoke a
creed. "I ain't never had it and I ain't never missed it."

"Most folks are happy without an education," said Lulu.

"You're not very happy, though."

"Oh, no," she said.

"Well, sir," said Ninian, "I'll tell you what we'll do. While I'm here
I'm going to take you and Ina and Dwight up to the city."

"To the city?"

"To a show. Dinner and a show. I'll give you _one_ good time."

"Oh!" Lulu leaned forward. "Ina and Dwight go sometimes. I never been."

"Well, just you come with me. I'll look up what's good. You tell me
just what you like to eat, and we'll get it----"