d say, "an' I ain't started on 'em yet. I'm a-savin' some for
their weddin', bless Gord, if I ever sees a man fitten for 'em."

It was an hour yet before dinner, and Aunt Maria had dressed Helen,
this Saturday afternoon, with great care--for after a little frost,
each day and night in Alabama becomes warmer and warmer until the
next frost.

Mammy Maria knew things by intuition, and hence her care to see that
Helen looked especially pretty to-day.

There was no sun save where he streamed his ribbon rays from behind
Sunset Rock, and threw them in pearl and ivory fan handles--white and
gold and emerald, across the mackerel sky beyond.

Helen's silk skirt fitted her well, and one of those beautiful old
ribbons, flowered in broad leaf and blossoms, wound twice around her
slender waist and fell in broad streamers nearly to the ground. The
bodice was cut V-shaped at the throat--the corsage being taken from
one of her grandmother's made in 1822, and around her neck was a long
chain of pure gold beads.

She was a type of Southern beauty obtained only after years of gentle
dames and good breeding.

Her face was pure and fine, rather expressionless at her age, with a
straight nose and rich fine lips. Her heavy hair was coiled
gracefully about her head and fell in a longer coil, almost to her
shoulders. She was tall with a sloping, angular form, the flat
outlines of which were not yet filled with that fullness that time
would soon add.

Her waist was well turned, her shoulders broad and slightly rounded,
with that fullness of chest and breast which Nature, in her hour of
generosity, gives only to the queenly woman. The curves of her
sloping neck were perfect and carried not a wave-line of grossness.
It was as unsensual as a swan's.

Her gown, low cut, showed slight bony shoulders of classic turn and
whiteness, waiting only for time to ripen them to perfection; and the
long curved lines which ran up to where the deep braid of her rich
brown hair fell over them, together with the big joints of her arms
and the long, fine profile of her face were forerunners of a beauty
that is strong--like that of the thoroughbred brood mare after a
year's run on blue-grass.

Her eyes were her only weakness. They were deep and hazel, and given
to drooping too readily with that feigned modesty wherein vanity
clothes boldness. Down in their depths, also, shone that bright,
penetrating spark of a taper by which Folly lights, in woman, the
l