"You are so sweet, dear!" purred Mrs. Cherry. "Under the circumstances it
is so gracious of you not to feel yourself a stranger with us all and
especially with Andrew Sevier. Of course it would have been impossible
for him always to have avoided you and it was just like his generosity--"

"Miss Ca'line, honey," came in a decided voice from the doorway, "that
custard you is a-making for the major's supper is actin' curisome around
the aiges. Please, ma'am, come and see ter it a minute!"

"Oh, excuse me just a second," exclaimed Caroline Darrah to Mrs. Cherry
as she rose with alarm in her housewifely heart and hurried past Tempie
down the hall.

An instinct engendered by her love for Caroline Darrah had led Tempie to
notice and resent something in Mrs. Lawrence's manner to the child on
several previous occasions and to-day she had felt no scruples about
remaining behind the curtains well within ear-shot of the conversations.
Her knowledge of, and participation in, the Buchanan family affairs, past
and present and future, was an inheritance of several generations and she
never hesitated to assert her privileges.

"Lady," she said in a cool soft voice as she squared herself in the
doorway and looked Mrs. Lawrence directly in the face, "you is a rich
white woman and I's a poor nigger, but ef you had er secceeded in
a-putting that thare devil's tale into my young mistess's head they would
er been that 'twixt you and me that we never would er forgot; and there
wouldn't a-been more'n a rag left of that dead-husband-bought frock what
you've got on. Now 'fore I fergits myself I axes you out the front
door--and I'm a-fergittin' fast."