a stranger would have noticed about her face; yet it was a
trait which neither her husband nor her child had ever observed. There
was a fine moisture on her forehead, and this added so greatly to the
natural transparency of her features that, standing there in the wan
light, she might have been mistaken for the phantom of her daughter's
vivid flesh and blood beauty. "I wonder if you would mind going on to
Bolingbroke Street, so I may speak to Belinda Treadwell a minute?" she
asked, as soon as she had recovered her breath. "I want to find out if
she has engaged Miss Willy Whitlow for the whole week, or if there is
any use my sending a message to her over in Botetourt. If she doesn't
begin at once, Jinny, you won't have a dress to wear to Abby Goode's
party."

Virginia's heart gave a single bound of joy and lay quiet. Not for
worlds would she have asked to go to the Treadwells', yet ever since
they had started, she had longed unceasingly to have her mother suggest
it. The very stars, she felt, had worked together to bring about her
desire.

"But aren't you tired, mother? It really doesn't matter about my dress,"
she murmured, for it was not in vain that she had wrested a diploma for
deportment from Miss Priscilla.

"Why can't I take the message for you, Aunt Lucy? You look tired to
death," urged John Henry.

"Oh, I shan't mind the walk as soon as we get out into the breeze,"
replied Mrs. Pendleton. "It's a lovely night, only a little close in
this alley." And as she spoke she looked gently down on the Problem of
the South as the Southern woman had looked down on it for generations
and would continue to look down on it for generations still to
come--without seeing that it was a problem.

"Well, it's good to get a breath of air, anyway!" exclaimed John Henry
with fervour, when they had passed out of the alley into the lighted
street. Around them the town seemed to beat with a single heart, as if
it waited, like Virginia, in breathless suspense for some secret that
must come out of the darkness. Sometimes the sidewalks over which they
passed were of flag-stones, sometimes they were of gravel or of strewn
cinders. Now and then an old stone house, which had once sheltered
crinoline and lace ruffles, or had served as a trading station with the
Indians before Dinwiddie had become a city, would loom between two small
shops where the owners, coatless and covered with sweat, were selling
flat beer to jaded and miserable custo