Lawd'll burn de wicked!"

The men were removing the carved legs. Virginia went back into the room
and stood before the deputy.

"Isn't there something else you could take? Some jewellery?" She flushed.
"I have a necklace--"

"No, miss. This warrant's on your father. And there ain't nothing quite
so salable as pianos."

She watched them, dry-eyed, as they carried it away. It seemed like a
coffin. Only Mammy Easter guessed at the pain in Virginia's breast, and
that was because there was a pain in her own. They took the rosewood
what-not, but Virginia snatched the songs before the men could touch
them, and held them in her arms. They seized the mahogany velvet-bottomed
chairs, her uncle's wedding present to her mother; and, last of all, they
ruthlessly tore up the Brussels carpet, beginning near the spot where
Clarence had spilled ice-cream at one of her children's parties.

She could not bear to look into the dismantled room when they had gone.
It was the embodied wreck of her happiness. Ned closed the blinds once
more, and she herself turned the key in the lock, and went slowly up the
stairs.




CHAPTER V