Violence at the hands of Melanie. Where he got this idea, Scarlett

did not know but she dismissed it with the contempt it deserved.

For what possible influence could Melanie have on people like Mrs.

Elsing and Mrs. Merriwether? That they did not call again worried

her very little; in fact, their absence was hardly noticed, for her

suite was crowded with guests of another type. "New people,"

established Atlantians called them, when they were not calling them

something less polite.

There were many "new people" staying at the National Hotel who,

like Rhett and Scarlett, were waiting for their houses to be

completed. They were gay, wealthy people, very much like Rhett's

New Orleans friends, elegant of dress, free with their money, vague

as to their antecedents. All the men were Republicans and were "in

Atlanta on business connected with the state government." Just

what the business was, Scarlett did not know and did not trouble to

learn.

Rhett could have told her exactly what it was--the same business

that buzzards have with dying animals. They smelled death from

afar and were drawn unerringly to it, to gorge themselves.

Government of Georgia by its own citizens was dead, the state was

helpless and the adventurers were swarming in.

The wives of Rhett's Scallawag and Carpetbagger friends called in

droves and so did the "new people" she had met when she sold lumber

for their homes. Rhett said that, having done business with them,

she should receive them and, having received them, she found them

pleasant company. They wore lovely clothes and never talked about

the war or hard times, but confined the conversation to fashions,

scandals and whist. Scarlett had never played cards before and she

took to whist with joy, becoming a good player in a short time.

Whenever she was at the hotel there was a crowd of whist players in

her suite. But she was not often in her suite these days, for she

was too busy with the building of her new house to be bothered with

callers. These days she did not much care whether she had callers

or not. She wanted to delay her social activities until the day

when the house was finished and she could emerge as the mistress of

Atlanta's largest mansion, the hostess of the town's most elaborate

entertainments.

Through the long warm days she watched her red stone and gray

shingle house rise grandly, to tower above any other house on

Peachtree Street. Forgetful of the store and the mills, she spent

her time on the lot, arguing with carpenters, bickering with

masons, harrying the contractor. As the walls went swiftly up she

thought with satisfaction that, when finished, it would be larger

and finer looking than any other house in town. It would be even

more imposing than the near-by James residence which had just been

purchased for the official mansion of Governor Bullock.

The governor's mansion was brave with jigsaw work on banisters and

eaves, but the intricate scrollwork on Scarlett's house put the

mansion to shame. The mansion had a ballroom, but it looked like a

billiard table compared with the enormous room that covered the

entire third floor of Scarlett's house. In fact, her house had

more of everything than the mansion, or any other house in town for

that matter, more cupolas and turrets and towers and balconies and

lightning rods and far more windows with colored panes.

A veranda encircled the entire house, and four flights of steps on

the four sides of the building led up to it. The yard was wide and

green and scattered about it were rustic iron benches, an iron

summerhouse, fashionably called a "gazebo" which, Scarlett had been

assured, was of pure Gothic design, and two large iron statues, one

a stag and the other a mastiff as large as a Shetland pony. To

Wade and Ella, a little dazzled by the size, splendor and fashionable

dark gloom of their new home, these two metal animals were the only

cheerful notes.

Within, the house was furnished as Scarlett had desired, with thick

red carpeting which ran from wall to wall, red velvet portieres and

the newest of highly varnished black-walnut furniture, carved

wherever there was an inch for carving and upholstered in such

slick horsehair that ladies had to deposit themselves thereon with

great care for fear of sliding off. Everywhere on the walls were

gilt-framed mirrors and long pier glasses--as many, Rhett said