Indian had been in progress when the time came to meet the train

and it was obvious from the look of quizzical helplessness on

Rhett's face and the lowering indignation of Mammy that Bonnie had

refused to have her toilet remedied, even to meet her mother.

Scarlett said: "What a ragamuffin!" as she kissed the child and

turned a cheek for Rhett's lips. There were crowds of people in

the depot or she would never have invited this caress. She could

not help noticing, for all her embarrassment at Bonnie's

appearance, that everyone in the crowd was smiling at the figure

father and daughter cut, smiling not in derision but in genuine

amusement and kindness. Everyone knew that Scarlett's youngest had

her father under her thumb and Atlanta was amused and approving.

Rhett's great love for his child had gone far toward reinstating

him in public opinion.

On the way home, Scarlett was full of County news. The hot, dry

weather was making the cotton grow so fast you could almost hear it

but Will said cotton prices were going to be low this fall.

Suellen was going to have another baby--she spelled this out so the

children would not comprehend--and Ella had shown unwonted spirit

in biting Suellen's oldest girl. Though, observed Scarlett, it was

no more than little Susie deserved, she being her mother all over

again. But Suellen had become infuriated and they had had an

invigorating quarrel that was just like old times. Wade had killed

a water moccasin, all by himself. 'Randa and Camilla Tarleton were

teaching school and wasn't that a joke? Not a one of the Tarletons

had ever been able to spell cat! Betsy Tarleton had married a fat

one-armed man from Lovejoy and they and Hetty and Jim Tarleton were

raising a good cotton crop at Fairhill. Mrs. Tarleton had a brood

mare and a colt and was as happy as though she had a million

dollars. And there were negroes living in the old Calvert house!

Swarms of them and they actually owned it! They'd bought it in at

the sheriff's sale. The place was dilapidated and it made you cry

to look at it. No one knew where Cathleen and her no-good husband

had gone. And Alex was to marry Sally, his brother's widow!

Imagine that, after them living in the same house for so many

years! Everybody said it was a marriage of convenience because

people were beginning to gossip about them living there alone,

since both Old Miss and Young Miss had died. And it had about

broken Dimity Munroe's heart. But it served her right. If she'd

had any gumption she'd have caught her another man long ago,

instead of waiting for Alex to get money enough to marry her.

Scarlett chattered on cheerfully but there were many things about

the County which she suppressed, things that hurt to think about.

She had driven over the County with Will, trying not to remember

when these thousands of fertile acres had stood green with cotton.

Now, plantation after plantation was going back to the forest, and

dismal fields of broomsedge, scrub oak and runty pines had grown

stealthily about silent ruins and over old cotton fields. Only one

acre was being farmed now where once a hundred had been under the

plow. It was like moving through a dead land.

"This section won't come back for fifty years--if it ever comes

back," Will had said. "Tara's the best farm in the County, thanks

to you and me, Scarlett, but it's a farm, a two-mule farm, not a

plantation. And the Fontaine place, it comes next to Tara and then

the Tarletons. They ain't makin' much money but they're gettin'

along and they got gumption. But most of the rest of the folks,

the rest of the farms--"

No, Scarlett did not like to remember the way the deserted County

looked. It seemed even sadder, in retrospect, beside the bustle

and prosperity of Atlanta.

"Has anything happened here?" she asked when they were finally home

and were seated on the front porch. She had talked rapidly and

continuously all the way home, fearing that a silence would fall.

She had not had a word alone with Rhett since that day when she

fell down the steps and she was none too anxious to be alone with

him now. She did not know how he felt toward her. He had been

kindness itself during her miserable convalescence, but it was the

kindness of an impersonal stranger. He had anticipated her wants,

kept the children from bothering her and supervised the store and

the mills. But he had never said: "I'm sorry." Well, perhaps he

wasn't sorry. Perhaps he still thought that child that was never

born was not his child. How could she tell what went on in the

mind behind the bland dark face? But he had showed a disposition

to be courteous, for the first time in their married life, and a

desire to let life go on as though there had never been anything

unpleasant between them--as though, thought Scarlett, cheerlessly,

as though there had never been anything at all between them. Well,