heir feet as the daughter's long wail came
ringing through the house mingled with the cry of Johanna.

"Too late! Too late! De daughteh o' Zion done gone in unbeseen!"

Through two days more Fair lingered, quartered at the Swanee Hotel, and
conferred twice more with John March. In the procession that moved up
the cedar avenue of the old Suez burying-ground, he stepped beside
General Halliday, near its end. Among the headstones of the Montgomeries
the long line stopped and sang,

"For oh! we stand on Jordan's strand,
Our friends are passing over."

In the midst of the refrain, each time, there trembled up in tearful
ecstasy, above the common wave of song, the voices of Leviticus Wisdom
and his wife. But only once, after the last stanza, Johanna's yet
clearer tone answered them from close beside black-veiled Barbara,
singing in vibrant triumph,

"An' jess befo', de shiny sho'
We may almos' discoveh."

XXXIII.

THE OPPORTUNE MOMENT

Coming from the grave Fair walked with March.

"Yes, I go to-night; I shall see my father within three days. He may
think better of your ideas than I do. Don't you suppose really--" etc.
"You think you'll push it anyhow?"

"Yes, sir. In fact, I've got to."

After all others were gone one man still loitered furtively in the
cemetery. He came, now, from an alley of arborvitaes with that fantastic
elasticity of step which skilled drunkards learn. He had in hand a bunch
of limp flowers of an unusual kind, which he had that day ridden all the
way to Pulaski City to buy. He stood at the new grave's foot, sank to
one knee, wiped true tears from his eyes, pressed apart the evergreens
and chrysanthemums piled there, and laid in the midst his own bruised
and wilted offering of lilies.

As he reached the graveyard gate in departing his mood lightened.

"An' now gen'le_men_," he said to himself, "is come to pa-ass the ve-y
nick an' keno o' time faw a fresh staht. Frien' Gyarnit, we may be happy
yit."

He came up behind Fair and March. Fair was speaking of Fannie.

"But where was she? I didn't see her."

"Oh, she stayed at Rosemont to look after the house."

"The General tells me his daughter is to be married to Mr. Ravenel in
March."

John gave an inward start, but was silent for a moment. Then he said,
absently,

"So that's out, is it?" But a few steps farther on he touched Fair's
arm.

"Let's go--slower." His smile was ashen. "I--h--I don't know why