Indian blood was plain in her features, overbalancing the negroid

characteristics. The red color of her skin, narrow high forehead,

prominent cheek bones and the hawk-bridged nose which flattened at

the end above thick negro lips, all showed the mixture of two

races. She was self-possessed and walked with a dignity that

surpassed even Mammy's, for Mammy had acquired her dignity and

Dilcey's was in her blood.

When she spoke, her voice was not so slurred as most negroes' and

she chose her words more carefully.

"Good evenin', young Misses. Mist' Gerald, I is sorry to 'sturb

you, but I wanted to come here and thank you agin fo' buyin' me

and my chile. Lots of gentlemens might a' bought me but they

wouldn't a' bought my Prissy, too, jes' to keep me frum grievin'

and I thanks you. I'm gwine do my bes' fo' you and show you I

ain't forgettin'."

"Hum--hurrump," said Gerald, clearing his throat in embarrassment

at being caught openly in an act of kindness.

Dilcey turned to Scarlett and something like a smile wrinkled the

corners of her eyes. "Miss Scarlett, Poke done tole me how you

ast Mist Gerald to buy me. And so I'm gwine give you my Prissy

fo' yo' own maid."

She reached behind her and jerked the little girl forward. She

was a brown little creature, with skinny legs like a bird and a

myriad of pigtails carefully wrapped with twine sticking stiffly

out from her head. She had sharp, knowing eyes that missed

nothing and a studiedly stupid look on her face.

"Thank you, Dilcey," Scarlett replied, "but I'm afraid Mammy will

have something to say about that. She's been my maid ever since I

was born."

"Mammy getting ole," said Dilcey, with a calmness that would have

enraged Mammy. "She a good mammy, but you a young lady now and

needs a good maid, and my Prissy been maidin' fo' Miss India fo' a

year now. She kin sew and fix hair good as a grown pusson."

Prodded by her mother, Prissy bobbed a sudden curtsy and grinned

at Scarlett, who could not help grinning back.

"A sharp little wench," she thought, and said aloud: "Thank you,

Dilcey, we'll see about it when Mother comes home."

"Thankee, Ma'm. I gives you a good night," said Dilcey and,

turning, left the room with her child, Pork dancing attendance.

The supper things cleared away, Gerald resumed his oration, but

with little satisfaction to himself and none at all to his

audience. His thunderous predictions of immediate war and his

rhetorical questions as to whether the South would stand for

further insults from the Yankees only produced faintly bored,

"Yes, Papas" and "No, Pas." Carreen, sitting on a hassock under

the big lamp, was deep in the romance of a girl who had taken the

Veil after her lover's death and, with silent tears of enjoyment

oozing from her eyes, was pleasurably picturing herself in a white

coif. Suellen, embroidering on what she gigglingly called her

"hope chest," was wondering if she could possibly detach Stuart

Tarleton from her sister's side at the barbecue tomorrow and

fascinate him with the sweet womanly qualities which she possessed

and Scarlett did not. And Scarlett was in a tumult about Ashley.

How could Pa talk on and on about Fort Sumter and the Yankees when

he knew her heart was breaking? As usual in the very young, she

marveled that people could be so selfishly oblivious to her pain

and the world rock along just the same, in spite of her heartbreak.

Her mind was as if a cyclone had gone through it, and it seemed

strange that the dining room where they sat should be so placid,

so unchanged from what it had always been. The heavy mahogany

table and sideboards, the massive silver, the bright rag rugs on

the shining floor were all in their accustomed places, just as if

nothing had happened. It was a friendly and comfortable room and,

ordinarily, Scarlett loved the quiet hours which the family spent

there after supper; but tonight she hated the sight of it and, if

she had not feared her father's loudly bawled questions, she would

have slipped away, down the dark hall to Ellen's little office and

cried out her sorrow on the old sofa.

That was the room that Scarlett liked the best in all the house.

There, Ellen sat before her tall secretary each morning, keeping

the accounts of the plantation and listening to the reports of

Jonas Wilkerson, the overseer. There also the family idled while

Ellen's quill scratched across her ledgers. Gerald in the old

rocker, the girls on the sagging cushions of the sofa that was too

battered and worn for the front of the house. Scarlett longed to

be there now, alone with Ellen, so she could put her head in her

mother's lap and cry in peace. Wouldn't Mother ever come home?

Then, wheels ground sharply on the graveled driveway, and the soft

murmur of Ellen's voice dismissing the coachman floated into the

room. The whole group looked up eagerly as she entered rapidly,

her hoops swaying, her face tired and sad. There entered with her

the faint fragrance of lemon verbena sachet, which seemed always

to creep from the folds of her dresses, a fragrance that was

always linked in Scarlett's mind with her mother. Mammy followed

at a few paces, the leather bag in her hand, her underlip pushed

out and her brow lowering. Mammy muttered darkly to herself as

she waddled, taking care that her remarks were pitched too low to

be understood but loud enough to register her unqualified

disapproval.

"I am sorry I am so late," said Ellen, slipping her plaid shawl

from drooping shoulders and handing it to Scarlett, whose cheek

she patted in passing.

Gerald's face had brightened as if by magic at her entrance.

"Is the brat baptized?" he questioned.

"Yes, and dead, poor thing," said Ellen. "I feared Emmie would

die too, but I think she will live."

The girls' faces turned to her, startled and questioning, and

Gerald wagged his head philosophically.

"Well, 'tis better so that the brat is dead, no doubt, poor

fatherle--"

"It is late. We had better have prayers now," interrupted Ellen

so smoothly that, if Scarlett had not known her mother well, the

interruption would have passed unnoticed.

It would be interesting to know who was the father of Emmie

Slattery's baby, but Scarlett knew she would never learn the truth

of the matter if she waited to hear it from her mother. Scarlett

suspected Jonas Wilkerson, for she had frequently seen him walking

down the road with Emmie at nightfall. Jonas was a Yankee and a

bachelor, and the fact that he was an overseer forever barred him

from any contact with the County social life. There was no family

of any standing into which he could marry, no people with whom he

could associate except the Slatterys and riffraff like them. As

he was several cuts above the Slatterys in education, it was only

natural that he should not want to marry Emmie, no matter how

often he might walk with her in the twilight.

Scarlett sighed, for her curiosity was sharp. Things were always

happening under her mother's eyes which she noticed no more than