its
apparent expensiveness. Perhaps, however, Becky was skillful with her
needle. Some women were. He did not care greatly for such skill, but
he was charmed by the effect.

"You are a rose among the roses," he said again, and broke off a big
pink bud from a bush near by. "Bend your head a little. I want to put
it in your hair."

His fingers caught in the bronze mesh. "It is wound around my ring."
He fumbled in his pockets with his free hand and got his knife. "It
may pull a bit."

He showed her presently the lock which he had cut. "It seems alive,"
he kissed it and put it in his pocket.

Her protest was genuine. "Oh, please," she said, "I wish you wouldn't."

"Wouldn't what?"

"Keep it."

"Shall I throw it away?"

"You shouldn't have cut it off."

"Other men have been tempted--in a garden----"

It might have startled George could he have known that old Mandy,
eyeing him from the kitchen, placed him in Eden's bower not as the hero
of the world's initial tragedy, but as its Satanic villain.

"He sutt'n'y have _be_witched Miss Becky," she told Calvin; "she ain'
got her min' on nothin' but him."

"Yo' put yo' min' on yo' roas' lamb, honey," Calvin suggested.
"How-cum you got late?"

"That chile kep' me fixin' that pink dress. She ain' never cyard what
she wo'. And now she stan' in front o' dat lookin'-glass an' fuss an'
fiddle. And w'en she ain' fussin' an' fiddlin', she jus' moons around,
waitin' fo' him to come ridin' up in that red car like a devil on
greased light'in'. An' I say right heah, Miss Claudia ain' gwine like
it."

"Why ain' she?"

"Miss Claudia know black f'um w'ite. An' dat man done got a black
heart----"

"Whut yon know 'bout hit, Mandy?"

"Lissen. You wait. He'll suck a o'ange an' th'ow it away. He'll pull
a rose, and scattah the leaves." Mandy, stirring gravy, was none the
less dramatic. "You lissen, an' wait----"

"Wen Miss Claudia comin'?"

"In one week, thank the Lord," Mandy pushed the gravy to the back of
the stove and pulled forward an iron pot. "The soup's ready," she
said; "you go up and tell the Jedge, Calvin."

All through dinner, Becky was conscious of that lock of hair in
George's pocket. The strand from which the lock had been cut fell down
on her cheek. She had to tuck it back. She saw George smile as she
did it. She forgave him.

It was after dinner that George spoke of Becky's gown.

"It is perfect," he said, "all except the pearls--