essed melon on the place, than have given Miss Nancy's Nerves
such a shock."

[Illustration]

Chapter XVI

Old Madam Leigh

Nobody seemed to know how everybody got into the way of calling her "Old
Madam Leigh." It was not a Virginia custom, and there was not another
old lady in the neighborhood to whom the title of "Madam" was ever
given. After she had lived to be the oldest woman in the county, the
"Old" was prefixed, naturally enough.

I got to know her through Cousin Molly Belle.

"I declare, Frank, Molly has never seen Queen Mab and her hummers!" she
said at dinner one day. "I'm ashamed of myself for not having taken her
there. It's just the sort of thing she would enjoy."

When Mrs. Frank Morton was ashamed of having done anything, or having
left anything undone, the next, and a quick step with her, was to mend
the fault without further waste of words. We went over to Old Madam
Leigh's that same afternoon,--she, Cousin Frank, and I,--on horseback,
"the road to Queen Mab's palace being the vilest in the State," as my
hostess averred.

I thought it a delightful road. It left the main highway a mile beyond
Cousin Frank's plantation gate, and lost its way in oak and hickory
woods, where the trees touched over our heads. I said they were "trying
to shake hands with one another."

"They will be hugging one another before we go much farther," said
Cousin Frank.

As they did when we began to climb a long hill, washed into crooked
gullies by the water that tore down to the creek at the bottom whenever
it rained hard. After this was a short and steeper hill, and then
another long one, and we were on the edge of a clearing, very bright and
sunny after the green glooms of the forest.

"Does Queen Mab drive this way, often, in her chariot-and-four?" I
inquired, as we struck into a gentle gallop along a grassy lane.

"Queen Mab's chariot has not been out of the carriage-house in
twenty-five years," answered Cousin Molly Belle. "There is another road
from her house to where everyday people live, but it would take us a
long way around. Mother can recollect when this was a good road, and
much travelled."

"Doesn't she make any visits?"

"Never to human beings."

"Doesn't she go to church?"

"Not that I have ever heard of."

"Cousin Molly Belle!" in an awed tone. "Is she a _heathen_?"

"She is very old, Namesake. Nearly ninety."

She said it gravely and gently, and Cousin Frank repeated a verse of