turned to hover over the beloved
young daughter. Now the memory of it was enhanced by the roar of the
wind and the dismal moaning of the tall pines. Virginia firmly
believed that her mother, among other unearthly visitants, walked in
the night when the blizzard kept up its incessant beating. She also
believed that the sound through the pines--that roaring,
ever-changing, unhuman sound--was not of the wind's making. It was
voices,--spirit voices,--voices of the dead, of those who had gone
down into the small cemetery beyond the road.

Only the day before Matty had told her how, one night, a tall,
wandering white thing had walked in silence across the fields to
Jonathan Woggles' house. In the story, Jonathan's grandpa was about to
pass away. The glittering spirit stalked around and around the house,
waiting for the old man's soul. She was about to relate the tale when
her father repeated:

"Your uncle is bad enough to want us out of the way."

The shuddering chill again possessed her. She was torn between horror
and eagerness--horror of what might be and eagerness to escape it.

"But he can't get us out, can he?" she questioned.

"Yes, I'm afraid he can and will! Your Uncle Jordan is your mother's
stepbrother, no direct relation to you, but the only one left to look
after you in the world but me. If you've any desire to live, you must
leave here after I've gone, and that's all there is to it!"

Virginia then understood, for the first time, something of the danger
menacing her. Her heart beat and pounded like an engine ploughing up
hill. From sheer human desire of self-preservation, she partly rose
from the chair, with the idea of immediate departure.

"I could go with Matty, couldn't I?" she suggested.

Mr. Singleton made a negative gesture with his head, flinging himself
down again.

"Matty? Matty, the nigger? No, of course not. Matty is nothing to any
one who hasn't money, and you'll have none to pay her, or any one
else, after I'm gone. You must eat and live for three long years. Do
you understand that?... Sit back in your chair and don't fidget," he
concluded.

The girl obeyed, and a silence fell between them. The thought of the
wonderful white presence of which Matty had told her faded from her
mind. Her heart lay stone-like below her tightening throat, for her
former world and all the dear familiar things it held were to be
dashed from her, as a rose jar is broken on a marble floor, by a
single decision