totter back from the edge of the grave."

As he approached the blazed pine, a spot of darkness, which he had at
first mistaken for a small tree, detached itself from the surrounding
shadows, and assumed gradually a human shape. His immediate impression
was that the shape was a woman and that she was young. With his next
breath he became aware that she was also beautiful. In the fading light
her silhouette stood out as distinctly against the mellow background of
the sky, as did the great pine which marked the almost obliterated path
over the fields. Her dress was the ordinary calico one, of some dull
purplish shade, worn by the wives and daughters of the neighbouring
farmers; and on her bare white arm, with its upturned sleeve, she
carried a small split basket half filled with persimmons. She was of
an almost pure Saxon type--tall, broad-shouldered, deep-bosomed, with
a skin the colour of new milk, and soft ashen hair parted smoothly over
her ears and coiled in a large, loose knot at the back of her head. As
he reached her she smiled faintly and a little brown mole at the corner
of her mouth played charmingly up and down. After the first minute, Gay
found himself fascinated by this single imperfection in her otherwise
flawless features. More than her beauty he felt that it stirred his
blood and aroused in him the physical tenderness which he associated
always with some vague chivalrous impulse.

She moved slightly when he dismounted beside her, and a number of
small splotches of black circling around her resolved themselves into a
bodyguard of little negroes, clad in checked pinafores, with the scant
locks wrapped tightly with crimson cotton.

"May I let down the bars for you?" he asked, turning to look into her
face with a smile, "and do you take your collection of piccaninnies