will not look back to!"

She closed the book hastily and thrust it out of sight, beneath a
magazine.

* * * * *

"How strange that it should have been to-day!" It had been on Shirley's
lips to question, but the door had closed, and she went slowly
down-stairs. She sat a while thinking, but at length grew restless and
began to walk to and fro across the floor, her hands clasped behind her
head so that the cool air filled her flowing sleeves. In the hall she
could hear the leisurely kon-_kon_--kon-_kon_ of the tall clock. The
evening outside was exquisitely still and the metallic monotone was
threaded with the airy _fiddle-fiddle_ of crickets in the grass and
punctuated with the rain-glad _cloap_ of a frog.

Presently, with the mellow whirrings that accompany the movements of
such antiques, the ancient timepiece struck ten. At the sound she threw
a thin scarf over her shoulders and stole out to the porch. Its deep
odorous shadow was crossed by oblongs of lemon-colored light from the
windows. Before the kitchen door Ranston's voice was humming huskily:

"'Steal away; Steal away!
Steal away to Jesus.
Steal away! Steal away home--'"

accompanied by the soft alto of Aunt Judy the cook.

Shirley stepped lightly down to the wet grass. Looking back, she could
see her mother's lighted blind. All around the ground was splotched with
rose-petals, looking in the squares of light like bloody rain. Beyond
the margin of this brightness all was in darkness, for the moon was not
yet risen, and a light damp breeze passed in a slow rhythm as if the
earth were breathing moistly in its sleep. Somewhere far away sounded
the faint inquiring _woo-o-o_ of an owl and in the wet branches of a
walnut tree a pigeon moved murmurously.

She skimmed the lawn and ran a little way down the lane. A shuffling
sound presently fell on her ear.

"Is that you, Unc' Jefferson?" she called softly.

"Yas'm!" The footsteps came nearer. "Et's me, Miss Shirley." He tittered
noiselessly, and she could see his bent form vibrating in the gloom.
"Yo' reck'n Ah done fergit?"

"No, indeed. I knew you wouldn't do that. How is he?"

"He right much bettah," he replied in the same guarded tone. "Doctah he
say he be all right in er few days, on'y he gotter lay up er while. Dat
was er ugly nip he got f'om dat 'spisable rep_tyle_. Ah reck'n de
moc'sins is wuss'n dem ar Floridy yallargaters."

"Do you think there ca