bile?"

"I'll have one at the door for you at ten," said he.

She turned to Phyl.

"You'd better go with me--if you'd like to; you'd be lonely here all by
yourself, and you may as well see Grangersons whilst the old man's there,
though maybe he'll be gone before we arrive. We may be there for a couple
of days, so you'd better take enough things."

Then she went off to dress herself for the journey, and an hour later she
appeared veiled and apparelled, Dick following her with the luggage, a
bandbox and a bag of other days.

She got into the big touring car without a word. Phyl followed her and
Pinckney tucked the rug round their knees.

"You've got the most careful driver in Charleston," said he, "and he knows
the road."

Miss Pinckney nodded.

She was flying straight in the face of her pet prejudice. She was not in
the least afraid of a break down or an overset. An accident that did not
rob her of life or limb would indeed have been an opportunity for saying
"I told you so." She was chiefly afraid of running over things.

As Pinckney was closing the door on them who should appear but Seth--Seth
in a striped sleeved jacket, all grin and frizzled head and bearing a
bunch of flowers in his hand. He had not been dismissed after all. When
Miss Pinckney had gone into the kitchen to pay him his wages he had
carried on so that she forgave him. The flowers--her own flowers just
picked from the garden--were an offering, not to propitiate but to
please.

Pinckney laughed, but Miss Pinckney as she took the bouquet scarcely
noticed either him or Seth, her mind was busy with something else.

She leaned over towards the chauffeur.

"Mind you don't run over any chickens," said she.

It was a gorgeous morning, with the sea mists blowing away on the sea
wind, swamp-land and river and bayou showing streets and ponds of sapphire
through the vanishing haze.

Phyl was in high spirits; the tune of Camptown Races, which a street boy
had been whistling as they started, pursued her. Miss Pinckney, dumb
through the danger zone where chickens and dogs and nigger children might
be run over, found her voice in the open country.

The bunch of flowers presented to her by Seth and which she was holding on
her lap started her off.

"I hope it is not a warning," said she; "wouldn't be a bit surprised to
find Seth Grangerson in his coffin waiting for the flowers to be put on
him; what put it in to the darkey's head to give me them! I d