r brothers lived on
their plantation. Zebbie had never dared speak to her until one day he
had driven over with his mother and sisters to a dinner given on a
neighboring plantation. He was standing outside near the wall, when
some one dropped a spray of apple blossoms down upon him from an upper
window. He looked up and Pauline was leaning out smiling at him. After
that he made it a point to frequent places where he might expect her,
and things went so well that presently Caesar was left at home lest he
should tell the brothers. She was a loyal little soul and would not
desert, although he urged her to, even promising to go away, "plumb
away, clean to Scott County if she would go." She told him that her
brothers would go even as far as that to kill him, so that they must
wait and hope. Finally Zebbie got tired of waiting, and one day he
boldly rode up to the Gorley home and formally asked for Pauline's
hand. The bullet he got for his presumption kept him from going to the
war with his father and brother when they marched away.

Some time later George Gorley was shot and killed from ambush, and
although Zebbie had not yet left his bed the Gorleys believed he did
it, and one night Pauline came through a heavy rainstorm, with only
Caesar, to warn Zebbie and to beg him, for her sake, to get away as fast
as he could that night. She pleaded that she could not live if he were
killed and could never marry him if he killed her brothers, so she
persuaded him to go while they were all innocent.

Well, he did as she wished and they never saw each other again. He
never went home again until last Thanksgiving, and dear little Pauline
had been dead for years. She herself had taken her little gifts for
Zebbie to Mothie to keep for him. Some years later she died and was
buried in the dress she mentioned. It was woven at Adeline Carter's,
one of the bitterest enemies of the Gorleys, but the sacrifice of her
pride did her no good because she was long at rest before Zebbie knew.
He had been greatly grieved because no stone marked her grave, only a
tangle of rose-briers. So he bought a stone, and in the night before
Decoration Day he and two of Uncle Buck's grandsons went to the Gorley
burying-ground and raised it to the memory of sweet Pauline. Some of
the Gorleys still live there, so he came home at once, fearing if they
should find out who placed the stone above their sister they would take
vengeance on his poor, frail body.

After he