tin' eve'y thing pink, Miss Becky?" Mandy asked.

"For a change," said Becky.

And how could she tell old Mandy that she had felt that in a
rose-colored world everything should be rose-color?

She tried on each frock deliberately. She tried on every pair of
slippers. She tried on the wraps, and the hats which came up finally
with Calvin staggering beneath the bulkiness of the box. She was
lovely in everything. And she was no longer the little Becky Bannister
whom Dalton had wooed. She was Mademoiselle Midas, appraising her
beauty in her lovely clothes, and wondering what Dalton would think if
he could see her.

II

Becky did not, after all, wear the pink gingham. The Judge elected to
go on horseback, so Becky rode forth by his side correctly and smartly
attired in a gray habit, with a straight black sailor and a high stock
and boots that made her look like a charming boy.

They came to Pavilion Hill to find the boarders like the chorus in
light opera very picturesque in summer dresses and summer flannels, and
with Mrs. Paine in a broad hat playing the part of leading lady. Mr.
Flippin, who was high-priest at all of the county barbecues, was
superintending the roasting of a whole pig, and Mrs. Flippin had her
mind on hot biscuits. The young mulatto, Daisy, and Mandy's John, with
the negroes from the Paine household, were setting the long tables
under the trees. There was the good smell of coffee, much laughter,
and a generally festive atmosphere.

The Judge, enthroned presently in the Pavilion, was the pivotal center
of the crowd. Everybody wanted to hear his stories, and with this
fresh audience to stimulate him, he dominated the scene. He wore a
sack suit and a Panama hat and his thin, fine face, the puff of curled
white hair at the back of his neck, the gayety of his glance gave an
almost theatric touch to his appearance, so that one felt he might at
any moment come down stage and sing a topical song in the best
Gilbertian manner.

It was an old scene with a new setting. It was not the first time that
Pavilion Hill had been the backgrounds of a barbecue. But it was the
first time that a Paine of King's Crest had accepted hospitality on its
own land. It was the first time that it had echoed to the voices of an
alien group. It was the first time that it had seen a fighting black
man home from France. The old order had changed indeed. No more would
there be feudal lords of Albemarle acres.