name them, but
suddenly the sunlight glistened on their snowy wings and she saw that
they were ibises flying south. In a little while she would be flying
North. What would her welcome there be like?

Of one thing she was sure. She wanted with all the intensity of her
nature to get away, to leave Merryvale and all its inhabitants, black
and white. Why, there was no place to which she could go! To turn down
the path to her black mother's cottage, there to find herself a
stranger, was more than she could bear; she would not go again until she
went to say good-by. But here at the great house life was always
difficult. She wearied of Miss Witherspoon and even of her dear Miss
Patty; they were so bent upon running her as though she were a private
show. She liked Mr. Merryvale sincerely, but she often avoided him, for
once he asked her to walk with him and on the way they met his son; and
she was in terror lest they two be left together.

For it was the younger man who made life difficult. He would not give up
trying to speak with her, while never for a moment would she permit him
to see her alone. She had resolved upon this course the night that she
had come into his home and she did not mean to swerve from it. If Hertha
Williams had not been worthy of a lasting love neither was Hertha
Ogilvie. She avoided him, and when he had written her put back the
letter unread in his room. But as she saw him at table, his bright face
looking all attention if she spoke the simplest word; as she was the
recipient of every courtesy from him, when, with the others, they sat in
the living-room; as she caught his eye, the rare times that she glanced
up when he was near and saw the old look in his face; she feared she
could not trust herself if he should speak.

A knock at her door. She did not open it but asked who was there.

There was no answer; and though the knock was repeated she made no
motion to open the door.

No, she would not talk with him. He had despised her, and now, as Ellen
said, she could despise him. There was tonic in the thought.

"Hertha!" a voice called.

She was standing at the window and despite herself looked down to where
Lee Merryvale stood below.

"Come!" he cried.

It sounded like a command. She shook her head angrily and walked back
into the room. This was persecution. There was no place for her. Mammy's
home was closed and in this she must continually evade one of the
household.

Another knock. This