Inviting and one of them, the largest, had stood in the place of

honor in this same alcove where she now sat. It had been

Scarlett's favorite seat at parties. From this point stretched the

pleasant vista of drawing room and dining room beyond, the oval

mahogany table which seated twenty and the twenty slim-legged

chairs demurely against the walls, the massive sideboard and buffet

weighted with heavy silver, with seven-branched candlesticks,

goblets, cruets, decanters and shining little glasses. Scarlett

had sat on that sofa so often in the first years of the war, always

with some handsome officer beside her, and listened to violin and

bull fiddle, accordion and banjo, and heard the exciting swishing

noises which dancing feet made on the waxed and polished floor.

Now the chandelier hung dark. It was twisted askew and most of the

prisms were broken, as if the Yankee occupants had made their

beauty a target for their boots. Now an oil lamp and a few candles

lighted the room and the roaring fire in the wide hearth gave most

of the illumination. Its flickering light showed how irreparably

scarred and splintered the dull old floor was. Squares on the

faded paper on the wall gave evidence that once the portraits had

hung there, and wide cracks in the plaster recalled the day during

the siege when a shell had exploded on the house and torn off parts

of the roof and second floor. The heavy old mahogany table, spread

with cake and decanters, still presided in the empty-looking dining

room but it was scratched and the broken legs showed signs of

clumsy repair. The sideboard, the silver and the spindly chairs

were gone. The dull-gold damask draperies which had covered the

arching French windows at the back of the room were missing, and

only the remnants of the lace curtains remained, clean but

obviously mended.

In place of the curved sofa she had liked so much was a hard bench

that was none too comfortable. She sat upon it with as good grace

as possible, wishing her skirts were in such condition that she

could dance. It would be so good to dance again. But, of course,

she could do more with Frank in this sequestered alcove than in a

breathless reel and she could listen fascinated to his talk and

encourage him to greater flights of foolishness.

But the music certainly was inviting. Her slipper patted longingly

in time with old Levi's large splayed foot as he twanged a strident

banjo and called the figures of the reel. Feet swished and scraped

and patted as the twin lines danced toward each other, retreated,

whirled and made arches of their arms.

"'Ole Dan Tucker he got drunk--'

(Swing yo' padners!)

'Fell in de fiah' an' he kick up a chunk!'

(Skip light, ladies!)"

After the dull and exhausting months at Tara it was good to hear

music again and the sound of dancing feet, good to see familiar

friendly faces laughing in the feeble light, calling old jokes and

catchwords, bantering, rallying, coquetting. It was like coming to

life again after being dead. It almost seemed that the bright days

of five years ago had come back again. If she could close her eyes

and not see the worn made-over dresses and the patched boots and

mended slippers, if her mind did not call up the faces of boys

missing from the reel, she might almost think that nothing had

changed. But as she looked, watching the old men grouped about the

decanter in the dining room, the matrons lining the walls, talking

behind fanless hands, and the swaying, skipping young dancers, it

came to her suddenly, coldly, frighteningly that it was all as

greatly changed as if these familiar figures were ghosts.

They looked the same but they were different. What was it? Was it

only that they were five years older? No, it was something more

than the passing of time. Something had gone out of them, out of

their world. Five years ago, a feeling of security had wrapped

them all around so gently they were not even aware of it. In its

shelter they had flowered. Now it was gone and with it had gone

the old thrill, the old sense of something delightful and exciting

just around the corner, the old glamor of their way of living.

She knew she had changed too, but not as they had changed, and it

puzzled her. She sat and watched them and she felt herself an

alien among them, as alien and lonely as if she had come from

another world, speaking a language they did not understand and she

not understanding theirs. Then she knew that this feeling was the

same one she felt with Ashley. With him and with people of his

kind--and they made up most of her world--she felt outside of

something she could not understand.

Their faces were little changed and their manners not at all but it

seemed to her that these two things were all that remained of her

old friends. An ageless dignity, a timeless gallantry still clung

about them and would cling until they died but they would carry

undying bitterness to their graves, a bitterness too deep for

words. They were a soft-spoken, fierce, tired people who were

defeated and would not know defeat, broken yet standing determinedly

erect. They were crushed and helpless, citizens of conquered

provinces. They were looking on the state they loved, seeing it

trampled by the enemy, rascals making a mock of the law, their

former slaves a menace, their men disfranchised, their women