"Now don't talk dat 'way, chile. I know you laks him, an' I do' want
to stop you f'om tekin' him. Don't you say no, ez ef you wasn' nevah
gwine to say nothin' else. You jes' say a hol'in' off no."

"I like Mr. Northcope as a friend, and my no to him will be final."

The dinner did not go down very well with Mima that evening. It
stopped in her throat, and when she swallowed, it brought the tears to
her eyes. When it was done, she hurried away to her room.

She was so disappointed, but she would not confess it to herself, and
she would not weep. "He proposed to me because he pitied me, oh, the
shame of it! He turned me out of doors, and then thought I would be
glad to come back at any price."

When he read her cold formal note, Bartley knew that he had offended
her, and the thought burned him like fire. He cursed himself for a
blundering fool. "She was only trying to be kind to father and me," he
said, "and I have taken advantage of her goodness." He would never
have confessed to himself before that he was a coward. But that
morning when he got her note, he felt that he could not face her just
yet, and commending his father to the tender mercies of Mammy Peggy
and the servants, he took the first train to the north.

It would be hard to say which of the two was the most disappointed
when the truth was known. It might better be said which of the three,
for Mima went no more to the house, and the elder Northcope fretted
and was restless without her. He availed himself of an invalid's
privilege to be disagreeable, and nothing Mammy Peggy could do now
would satisfy him. Indeed, between the two, the old woman had a hard