"Will you tell your aunts, or shall I, Sally?" I asked.

"We'll go to them together."

"Now, at this instant?"

"Now--at this instant," she agreed, "but I thought you were so patient?"

"Patient? I'm as patient as an engine on the Great South Midland."

"A minute ago you were prepared to wait ten years."

"Oh, ten years!" I echoed, as I followed her out of the enchanted
garden.

At the corner the surrey was standing, and the face of old Shadrach, the
negro driver, stared back at me, transfixed with amazement.

"Whar you gwine now, Miss Sally?" he demanded defiantly of his young
mistress, as I took my place under the fur rug beside her.

"Home, Uncle Shadrach," she replied.

"Ain't I gwine drap de gent'man some whar on de way up?"

"No, Uncle Shadrach, home,"--and for home we started merrily with a
flick of the whip over the backs of the greys.

Sitting beside her for the first time in my life, I was conscious, as we
drove through the familiar streets, only of an acute physical delight in
her presence. As she turned toward me, her breath fanned my cheek, the
touch of her arm on mine was a rapture, and when the edge of her white
veil was blown into my face, I felt my blood rush to meet it. Never
before had I been so confident, so strong, so assured of the future. Not
the future alone, but the whole universe seemed to lie in the closed
palm of my hand. I knew that I was plain, that I was rough beside the
velvet softness of the woman who had promised to share my life; but this
plainness, this roughness, no longer troubled me since she had found in
it something of the power that had drawn her to me. My awkwardness had
dropped from me in the revelation of my strength which she had brought.
The odour of burning leaves floated up from the street, and I saw again
her red shoes dancing over the sunken graves in the churchyard. Oh,
those red shoes had danced into my life and would stay there forever!

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH SALLY SPEAKS HER MIND

We crossed the threshold, which I had thought never to pass again, and
entered the drawing-room, where a cedar log burned on the andirons. At
either end of the low brass fender, Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca sat very
erect, like two delicate silhouettes, the red light of the flames
shining through their fine, almost transparent profiles. Beyond them,
over the rosewood spinet, I saw their portrait, painted in fancy dress,
with clasped hands under a garland of rose