"

Running hurriedly down the steps, he stood talking to her beside the bed
of scarlet geraniums, while I felt a burning embarrassment pervade my
body to the very palms of my hands.

"Where's the other fellow, George?" called the General, suddenly.
"What's become of him?"

As he turned his head in my direction, I left the hall, and came out
upon the porch, acutely conscious, all the time, that there was too much
of me, that my hands and feet got in my way, that I ought to have put on
a different shirt in the afternoon.

Sally was stooping over to snip off the head of a geranium, and when she
looked up the next instant, with her hair blown back from her forehead,
her starry, expectant gaze rested full on my own.

"Why, it's the boy I used to know," she exclaimed, moving toward me.
"Boy, how do you do?" She put out her hand, and as I took it in mine, I
saw for the first time that she was a large girl for her age, and would
be a large woman. Her figure was already ripening under her thin white
gown, but her hands and feet were still those of a child, and moulded, I
saw, with that peculiar delicacy, which, I had learned from the doctor,
was the distinguishing characteristic of the Virginian aristocracy.

"It is a long time since--since I saw you," she remarked in a cordial
voice.

"It's been eight years," I answered. "I wonder that you remember me."

"Oh, I never forget. And besides, if I didn't see you for eight years
more, I should still recognise you by your eyes. There aren't many
boys," she said merrily, "who have eyes like a blue-eyed collie's."

With this she turned from me to George, and after a word or two to the
General, and a nod in my direction, they passed through the gate, and
went slowly along the street, her pale brown hair still blown like a
bird's wing behind her.

The General's sister, young George's Aunt Hatty, a severe little lady,
with a very flat figure, had come out on the porch, and was offering her
brother a dose of medicine.

"A good girl, Hatty," remarked the great man, in an affable mood. "A
little too much of her Aunt Matoaca's spirit for a wife, but a very good
girl, as long as you ain't married to her."

"She would be handsome, George, except for her mouth. It's a pity her
mouth spoils her."

"What's the matter with her mouth? I haven't got your eyesight, Hatty,
but it appears a perfectly good mouth to me."

"That's because you have naturally coarse tastes, George. A lady's m