road which ended in a curve toward the east and vanished in a thin-drawn
perspective toward the west. There was no habitation, or sign of human
being near. The soft March wind, with its thousand earthy odors and
promises of a Maryland springtide, swept across the bay, stirring her
dark hair, brushed up from her forehead in a natural, wavy pompadour,
and secured by a barrette and a big bow of dark red ribbon, the long
braid falling down her back tied by another bow of the same color. The
forehead was broad and exceptionally intellectual. The eyebrows,
matching the dark hair, perfectly penciled. The nose straight and clean-
cut as a Greek statue's. The chin resolute as a boy's. The teeth white
and faultless. And the eyes? Well, Peggy Stewart's eyes sometimes made
people smile, sometimes almost weep, and invariably brought a puzzled
frown to their foreheads. They were the oddest eyes ever seen. Peggy
herself often laughed and said:

"My eyes seem to perplex people worse than the elephant perplexed the
'six blind men of Hindustan' who went to SEE him. No two people ever
pronounce them the same color, yet each individual is perfectly honest
in his belief that they are black, or dark brown, or dark blue, or deep
gray, or SEA green. Maybe Nature designed me for a chameleon but changed
her mind when she had completed my eyes."

Peggy Stewart would hardly have been called a beautiful girl gauged by
conventional standards. Her features were not regular enough for
perfection, the mouth perhaps a trifle too large, but she was "mightily
pleasin' fer to study 'bout," old Mammy insisted when the other servants
were talking about her baby.

"Oh, yes," conceded Martha Harrison, the only white woman besides Peggy
herself upon the plantation. "Oh, yes, she's pleasing enough, but if her