orry myself, if I was you. That there bank-place, like as not, gits er
right smart lot of letters, an' hit stands ter reason the feller just
naturally can't write back ter ev'rybody at once."

"Of course," agreed Auntie Sue. "It is just some delay in their
acknowledgment, that is all. Perhaps they are waiting to find out if the
notes are genuine; or it may be that their letter to me went astray, and
will have to be returned to them, and then remailed all over again. I
feel sure I shall hear from them in a few days."

So they talked until the moon appeared from behind the dark mountains
that, against her light, were silhouetted on the sky. And, as the old
gentlewoman watched the queen of the night rising higher and higher
on her royal course, and saw the dusky landscape transformed to a
fairy-scene of ethereal loveliness, Auntie Sue forgot the letter that
had not come.

With the enthusiasm that never failed her, the silvery-haired teacher
tried to give the backwoods girl a little of her wealth of vision. But
though they looked at the same landscape, the eyes of twenty could
not see that which was so clear to the eyes of seventy. Poor Judy! The
river, sweeping on its winding way through the hills, from the springs
of its far-away beginnings to the ocean of its final endeavor,--in all
its varied moods and changes,--in all its beauty and its irresistible
power,--the river could never mean to Judy what it meant to Auntie Sue.

"Hit sure is er fine night for to go 'possum huntin'," said the girl, at
last, getting to her feet and standing in her twisted attitude, with her
wry neck holding her head to one side. "Them there Jackson boys'll sure
be out."

Auntie Sue laughed her low chuckling laugh.

From the edge of the timber that borders the fields of the bottom-lands
across the river, came the baying of hounds. "There they be now," said
Judy. "Hear 'em? The Billingses, 'cross from the clubhouse, 'll be out,
too, I reckon. When hit's moonlight, they're allus a-huntin' 'possum
an' 'coon. When hit's dark, they're out on the river a-giggin' for fish.
Well, I reckon I'll be a-goin' in, now, ma'm," she concluded, with a
yawn. "Ain't no use in a body stayin' up when there ain't nothin' ter do
but ter sleep, as I kin see."

With an awkward return to Auntie Sue's "Goodnight and sweet dreams,
dear," the mountain girl went into the house.

For an hour longer, the old gentlewoman sat on the porch of her little
log house by the ri