, a thread of tune tying moonbeams,
magnolias, carnations and cherokee roses in a great southern bunch, came
the notes of a banjo, plunk, plunk, and a voice from somewhere away in the
back premises, the voice of a negro singing one of the old Plantation
songs.

Just a snatch before some closing door cut the singer off, but enough to
make Phyl raise her head and listen, listen as though a whole world
vaguely guessed, a world forgotten yet still warm and loving, youthful and
sunlit, were striving to reach her and speak to her--As though Charleston
the mysterious city that had greeted her first in Meeting Street were
trying to tell her of things delightful, once loved, once known and
forever vanished.

As she lay awake that night with the moonlight showing through the blinds,
the whole of that strange day came before her in pictures: the face of
Frances Rhett troubled her, yet she did not know in the least why; it
seemed part of the horribleness of automobiles and the anger of Miss
Pinckney and the tribulations of Edgar Allan Poe.

Then the fantastic band of forgotten _literati_ trooped before her, led by
"Flaccus," the man who didn't look as if he had ever kissed a girl, yet
who wrote:

"And, straining, fastened on her lips a kiss,
That seemed to suck the life blood from her heart."

CHAPTER IV

Phyl awoke to the early morning sunlight and the sounds of Charleston.

The chimes of St. Michael's were striking six and through the summery
sunlit air carried by the sea wind stirring the curtains came the cries of
the streets and the rumbling of early morning carts.

Oh, those negro cries! the cry of the crab-seller, the orange vendor, the
man who sells "monkey meat" dolorous, long drawn out, lazy, you do not
know the South till you have heard them.

The sound of a mat being shaken and beaten on the piazza, adjoining that
on which her window opened came now, and two voices in dispute.

"Mistress Pinckney she told me to tell you--she mos' sholey did."

"Go wash yo' face, yo' coloured trash, cummin' here wid yo' orders--skip
out o' my piazza--'clar' to goodness I dunno what's cummin' to niggers
dese days."

Then Miss Pinckney's voice as from an upper window:

"Dinah! Seth! what's that I hear? Get on with your work the pair of you
and stop your chattering. You hear me?"

When Phyl came down Richard Pinckney was in the garden smoking a cigarette
and gathering some carnations.

"They'