he laughing at her?

"Oh," she said, and wheeled upon him, but had to laugh too, such was
the high glee behind the sweet gravity on William Leroy's countenance.
Glee there was, yet, too, something else in the dark eyes laughing at
her, something unconsciously warm and caressing.

The girl ran quickly up-stairs.

And William Leroy, brought to himself, stood where she left him. The
hand on the newel-post suddenly closed hard upon it, then he
straightened and walked into the parlour, and, sitting down, stared at
the embers of the wood fire, as one bewildered. Then his head lifted
as with one who understands. On his face was a strange look and a
light.

CHAPTER SIX

Alexina went up to her mother and Mrs. Leroy. Molly was lolling in a
big chair in the sunshine, idly swinging the tassel of her wrapper to
and fro. The shadows about her eyes were other than those lent by the
sweep of her childlike lashes, and she looked wan. But she looked at
peace, too. In her present state the flow of Mrs. Leroy's personal
chat was entertainment. Now, there was always one central theme to
Charlotte's talk, whatever the variations.

"He hasn't a bit of false pride, Willy hasn't," she was stating.
"After his father lost his position, those two years before the trees
began paying, there's nothing Willy wouldn't turn his hand to. He
carried a chain for the surveyors and went as guide for parties
hunting and fishing in the glades."

Molly's attention sometimes wandered from these maternal confidences.

"You were Charlotte Ransome before you were married, weren't you?" she
asked irrelevantly. "You used to come to New Orleans winters, didn't
you? You were at a party at my Uncle Randolph's once when I was a girl
and you were spoken of as a great beauty, I remember. There was a
pompon head-dress too, one winter, called the Charlotte Ransome."

The Charlotte listening, only the vivacity of smile and eyes left of
her beauty, the Charlotte living the obscure life of a little raw
Southern town, let her needle fall, the needle she handled with the
awkwardness of a craft acquired late. She was darning an old
tablecloth, come down from her mother's day, that day when triumphs
and adulation made up life, and when cost or reckoning was a thing she
troubled not herself about. She was that Charlotte Ransome again,
called up by Mrs. Garnier, the beauty, the fashion, and the belle.

"Oh," she said, "the joy of youth, the joy! Old Madame d'Arbla