Is she really so relentless?" continued
Courtland gayly.
"I mean that they lose their luck in everything. Something is sure to
happen. And SHE can't help it either. It's nigger superstition. It came from Mammy Judy, Sally's old
nurse. It's part of their regular Hoo-doo. She bewitched Miss Sally when
she was a baby, so that everybody is bound to HER as long as they care
for her, and she isn't bound to THEM in any way. All their luck goes to
her as soon as the spell is on them," she added darkly.
"I think I know the rest," returned Courtland with still greater
solemnity. "You gather the buds of the witch-hazel in April when the
moon is full."
"I'm not so sure of that," he said gallantly, "for I ought to be riding
at this moment over to the Infirmary to visit my Sunday sick. If being
made to pleasantly forget one's time and duty is a sign of witchcraft
I am afraid Mammy Judy's enchantments were not confined to only one
Southern young lady."
The sound of quick footsteps on the gravel path caused them both to look
up. A surly looking young fellow, ostentatiously booted and spurred,
and carrying a heavy rawhide riding-whip in his swinging hand, was
approaching them. Deliberately, yet with uneasy self-consciousness,
ignoring the presence of Courtland, he nodded abruptly to Miss Reed,
ascended the steps, brushed past them both without pausing, and entered
the house. Tom?" called the young lady after him,
a slight flush rising to her sallow cheek. The young man muttered
something from the hall which Courtland did not catch. "It's Cousin Tom
Higbee," she explained half disdainfully. "He's had some ugliness with
his horse, I reckon; but paw ought to teach him how to behave.
Courtland, who had kept his temper with his full understanding of the
intruder's meaning, smiled as he took Miss Reed's hand in parting.
"That's quite enough explanation, and I don't know why it shouldn't be
even an apology."
Yet the incident left little impression on him as he strolled back to
Redlands. It was not the first time he had tasted the dregs of former
sectional hatred in incivility and discourtesy, but as it seldom came
from his old personal antagonists--the soldiers--and was confined to the
callow youth, previous non-combatants and politicians, he could afford
to overlook it. He did not see Miss Sally during the following week.
CHAPTER IV.
On the next Sunday he was early at church. But he had perhaps
accented the occasion by driving there in a light buggy behind a fast
thoroughbred, possibly selected more to the taste of a smart cavalry
officer than an agricultural superintendent. He was already in a side
pew, his eyes dreamily fixed on the prayer-book ledge before him, when
there was a rustle at the church door, and a thrill of curiosity and
admiration passed over the expectant congregation. It was the entrance
of the Dows party, Miss Sally well to the fore. She was in her new
clothes, the latest fashion in Louisville, the latest but two in Paris
and New York.
It was over twenty years ago. I shall not imperil the effect of that
lovely vision by recalling to the eye of to-day a fashion of yesterday.
Enough, that it enabled her to set her sweet face and vapory golden hair
in a horseshoe frame of delicate flowers, and to lift her oval chin
out of a bewildering mist of tulle. Nor did a certain light polonaise
conceal the outlines of her charming figure. Even those who were
constrained to whisper to each other that "Miss Sally" must "be now
going on twenty-five," did so because she still carried the slender
graces of seventeen. The organ swelled as if to welcome her; as she took
her seat a ray of sunlight, that would have been cruel and searching to
any other complexion, drifted across the faint pink of her cheeks,
and nestling in her nebulous hair became itself transfigured. A few
stained-glass Virtues on the windows did not come out of this effulgence
as triumphantly, and it was small wonder that the devotional eyes of the
worshipers wandered from them to the face of Sally Dows.
When the service was over, as the congregation filed slowly into the
aisle, Courtland slipped mutely behind her. As she reached the porch he
said in an undertone:
"I brought my horse and buggy. I thought you might possibly allow me
to drive"--But he was stopped by a distressful knitting of her golden
brows."
As Courtland hesitated in momentary perplexity, she smiled sweetly:
"We'll walk round by the cemetery, if you like; it will take about as
long as a drive." Courtland vanished, gave hurried instructions and a
dollar to a lounging negro, and rejoined Miss Sally as the delighted and
proud freedman drove out of the gate. Miss Sally heaved a slight sigh
as the gallant equipage passed. "It was a mighty pooty turnout, co'nnle,
and I'd have just admired to go, but it would have been rather hard on
the other folks. There's the Reeds and Maxwells and Robertsons that are
too pooah to keep blood horses, and too proud to ride behind anything
else. It wouldn't be the right thing for us to go whirling by,
scattering our dust over them." There was something so subtly pleasant
in this implied partnership of responsibility, that Courtland forgot
the abrupt refusal and thought only of the tact that prompted it.
