that's where you got the grip on us. Yo'
look surprised, co'nnle."

"I didn't expect you would look at it--quite in--in--that way," said
Courtland awkwardly.

"I am sorry I disappointed yo' after yo' 'd taken such a heap o'
trouble," returned the young lady with a puzzling assumption of humility
as she rose and smoothed out her skirts, "but I couldn't know exactly
what yo' might be expecting after three years; if I HAD, I might have
put on mo'ning." She stopped and adjusted a straying tendril of her hair
with the sharp corner of the dead man's letter. "But I thank yo', all
the same, co'nnle. It was real good in yo' to think of toting these
things over here." And she held out her hand frankly.

Courtland took it with the sickening consciousness that for the last
five minutes he had been an unconscionable ass. He could not prolong the
interview after she had so significantly risen. If he had only taken
his leave and kept the letter and locket for a later visit, perhaps when
they were older friends! It was too late now. He bent over her hand for
a moment, again thanked her for her courtesy, and withdrew. A moment
later she heard the receding beat of his horse's hoofs on the road.

She opened the drawer of a brass-handled cabinet, and after a moment's
critical survey of her picture in the dead man's locket, tossed it and
the letter into the recesses of the drawer. Then she stopped, removed
her little slipper from her foot, looked at THAT, too, thoughtfully, and
called "Sophy!"

"Miss Sally?" said the girl, reappearing at the door.

"Are you sure you did not move that ladder?"

"I 'clare to goodness, Miss Sally, I never teched it!"

Miss Sally directed a critical glance at her handmaiden's red-coifed
head. "No," she said to herself softly, "it felt nicer than wool,
anyway!"

CHAPTER III.

In spite of the awkward termination of his visit,--or perhaps BECAUSE of
it,--Courtland called again at the plantation within the week. But this
time he was accompanied by Drummond, and was received by Miss Miranda
Dows, a tall, aquiline-nosed spinster of fifty, whose old-time
politeness had become slightly affected, and whose old beliefs had given
way to a half-cynical acceptance of new facts. Mr. Drummond, delighted
with the farm and its management, was no less fascinated by Miss Sally,
while Courtland was now discreet enough to divide his attentions between
her and her aunt, with the result that he was far from participat