ll
out somewhere on the farm. Winks had his mother's yellow-hazel eyes,
dark curls, and decision of character. He accepted Sophy for an aunt,
after some solemn pondering, and allowed her to take him in her arms.
She bore him across the hall to "make friends" with his new cousin. It
was delightful to see the two youngsters "taking stock" of each other.
Like two young cockerels they stood, fronting each other, heads down,
thumbs home to the hilt in red mouths, hackles ready to rise at the
least sign--round eyes fixed on round eyes. Bobby was the first to
remove a glistening thumb. His delicious little grin shone forth.

"Bobby boy!" he announced. "P'ay sogers!"

Winks considered a second longer. Then he, too, removed his thumb.

"Mh-mh," he assented, and allowed Bobby to take him by the hand. They
trotted off like brothers born, to play with the tin soldiers that Rosa
had already unpacked.

"_Che amorini!_" sighed she, looking after them with clasped hands. She
did not ask more of life than two such _bambini_ to adore. Rosa's was
the true mother-heart. Whether born of her own flesh or of another's,
children were all in all to her.

Though Sophy felt so dusty from her journey, she would not take the time
for a tub, from these first, wondrous hours of homecoming. She longed to
be out in the old grounds. Charlotte left her at last, to "see about
supper." How the familiar phrase warmed Sophy's heart! She peeped again
into the nursery before going down. She had worried a little as to how
Rosa would "get on" with the darkies. She need not have done so. She
found the dear old negress and the Lombard peasant woman sitting side
by side. Rosa looked up as she entered, and patted Mammy Nan's rather
embarrassed, satiny-brown face.

"Ees goo-ood," she cooed. "_La Mora e molto buona ... molto simpatica._"

To hear Mammy Nan called "the Moor" made Sophy smile. She stood there
smiling at them.

"Rosa's a mighty nice woman, Mammy," she said, slipping easily into the
vernacular.

"She sho' do 'pear so," agreed Mammy Nan, amiable but nervous. It seemed
so very peculiar to her to have a strange "white 'ooman" patting her
cheek and calling her "Cara," when her name was Ann.

II

Sophy went out, while Charlotte "saw about supper," and wandered alone
but not lonely through the grounds. It was "sundown," as they say in
Virginia. All the west was gold above the darkling violet of the
mountains. She went along one of the old