, and
brushed a speck from the skirt, while there came to her eyes a rush of
glad tears as she put it on, with a thought that he would like her in
it, and then tried to see its effect in the little eight by twelve
cracked glass upon the wall. All she could see was her head and
shoulders, and so she asked the opinion of Mandy Ann, who answered
quickly, "You done look beautiful--some like de young ladies in
Jacksonville, and some like you was gwine to be married."

"Perhaps I am," Eudora replied, with a joyous ring in her voice. "Would
you like to have me get married?"

Mandy Ann hesitated a moment and then said, "I'se promised never to tole
you no mo' lies, so dis is de truffe, ef I was to drap dead. I'd like
you to marry some de gemmans in Jacksonville, or some dem who comes to
de Brock House, but not him downstars!"

"Why not?" Eudora asked, and there was a little sharpness in her voice.

"'Case," Mandy Ann began, "you as't me, an' fo' de Lawd I mus' tell de
truffe. He's very tall an' gran', an' w'ars fine close, an' han's is
white as a cotton bat, but his eyes doan set right in his head. They
look hard, an' not a bit smilin', an' he looks proud as ef he thought we
was dirt, an' dem white han's--I do' know, but pears like they'd squeeze
body an' soul till you done cry wid pain. Doan you go for to marry him,
Miss Dory, will you?"

At first Mandy Ann had opened and shut her black fingers, as she showed
how the stranger's white hands would squeeze one's body and soul; then
they closed round her mistress's arm as she said, "Doan you marry him,
Miss Dory, will you?"

"No," Eudora answered, "don't be a silly, but go down and bring me a
rose, if you can find one two-thirds open. I wore one with this dress
before and he liked it, and as't me to give it to him. Mebby he will
now," she thought, while waiting for Mandy Ann, who soon came back with
a beautiful rose hidden under her apron.

"Strues I'm bawn, I b'lieve he's done gone to sleep like ole Miss--he's
settin' thar so still," she said.

But he was far from being asleep. He had gone over again and again with
everything within his range of vision, from the old woman nodding in her
chair, to the bucket of water standing outside the door, with a gourd
swimming on the top, and he was wondering at the delay, and feeling more
and more that he should take Tom Hardy's advice, when he heard steps on
the stairs, which he knew were not Mandy Ann's, and he rose to meet
Eudora