observe and nothing escaped him, from the improvised
candlesticks to the napkin by his china plate. He knew it was a
handkerchief, and smiled inwardly as he wondered what Tom Hardy would
say if he could see him now. The old lady was not at the table. Mandy
Ann had managed that and attended to her in her chair, but as if eating
brightened her faculties, she began to look about her and talk, and ask
why she couldn't sit at her own table.

"'Case thar's a gemman hyar an' you draps yer vittles so," Mandy Ann
said in a whisper, with her lips close to the old woman's ear.

"Gentleman? Who's he? Whar's he from?" the old woman asked--forgetting
that she had spoken to him.

"I told you oncet he's Miss Dory's frien' an' from de Norf. Do be
quiet," Mandy Ann blew into the deaf ears.

"From the Nawth. I don't like the Nawth, 'case I--" the old lady began,
but Mandy Ann choked her with a muffin, and she did not finish her
sentence and tell why she disliked the North.

Eudora's face was scarlet, but she did not interfere. Her grandmother
was in better hands than hers, and more forceful.

"Granny is queer sometimes," she said by way of apology, while her
guest bowed in token that he understood, and the meal proceeded in quiet
with one exception. Granny was choked with eating too fast, and Mandy
Ann struck her on her back and shook her up, and dropped her
dinner-plate and broke it in her excitement.

"For de Lawd's sake, 'tan't no use," she said, gathering up the pieces
and taking them to the kitchen, where Sonsie laughed till the tears ran
at Mandy Ann's attempt "to be gran'," and its result.

Meanwhile the stranger ate Sonsie's corn cakes and muffins, and said
they were good, and drank muddy coffee, sweetened with brown sugar out
of a big thick cup, and thought of his dainty service at home, and
glanced at the girl opposite him with a great pity, which, however, did
not move him one whit from his purpose. He had told her his plan and she
had accepted it, and he told it again when, after supper, she walked
with him through the clearing and the woods to the main road which led
to the river. He did the talking, while she answered yes or no, with a
sound of tears in her voice. When they reached the highway they stopped
by the sunken grave, and leaning against the fence which inclosed it,
Eudora removed her sunbonnet, letting the moon shine upon her face, as
it had done when she sat in the clearing. It was very white but there
we