"Of course." There was warmth in her voice but no coquetry. "What a
silly thing to ask, Randy."

Calvin, having served the lunch, ate his own particular feast of chicken
backs and necks under the surrey from a pasteboard box cover. Having
thus separated himself as it were from those he served, he was at his
ease. He knew his place and was happy in it.

Mary Flippin also knew her place. But she was not happy. She sat higher
up on the hill with her child asleep in her arms, and looked down on the
Judge's party. Except for an accident of birth, she might be sitting now
among them. Would she ever sit among them? Would her little daughter,
Fidelity?


III

"We are the only one of the old families who are eating lunch out of a
basket," said Caroline Paine; "next year we shall have to go to the
Country Club with the rest of them."

"I shall never go to the Country Club," said Judge Bannister, "as long
as there is a nigger to fry chicken for me."

"We may have to swim with the tide."

"Don't tell me that you'd rather be up there than here, Caroline."

"I'd like it for some things," Mrs. Paine admitted frankly; "you should
see the clothes that those Waterman women are wearing."