"Then I am very glad, for your sake. And very sorry for the children's,"

she added.

Then Miss Meeke began to cry.

"I cannot bear to leave Wynnette and Elva," she sobbed.

"You will not be parted from them, dear," kindly suggested Mrs. Force.

"You will be our neighbor, you know. You will come to see us very frequently, I hope. And as for the children, they will run after you so much that I expect you will wish them a thousand miles off."

"Oh, no! Never! never! Dear, bright Wynnette and fond Elva!"

"When your time comes you will be married from this house, my dear, as if you were a daughter of the family. And if you have any friends or relatives whom you would like to have present, give me their names and addresses, and I will invite them to come and stay for the wedding," said the lady.

"Oh, madam! how can I thank you? But your kindness to-day is only a continuation of the kindness you have shown me during the whole seven years I have lived at Mondreer. And always you have treated me as a daughter of the house. And my pupils have been as younger sisters. Ah! It seems ungrateful in me to leave them before they are grown up and out of my care."

"Do not think of that, my dear. Marriage is the natural destiny of a young woman. You have given enough of your youth to my children, and now that 'a good man and true' like Dr. Ingle loves you and wins your love, and offers you marriage, you should marry."

"I have been very happy here with you and through you, madam," said the governess.

"If it is so, as I hope and believe it is, it will be a very pleasant memory for us all. Do your pupils know of your engagement?"

"Oh, no! And I do so much dread to tell them!"

"Well, do not let them look forward to the marriage as a parting. Talk to them of your new home, and the happy times they will have in visiting you," said Mrs. Force.

Miss Meeke smiled and blushed, and said:

"I was to go to-morrow to inspect a new house in the village that the doctor was thinking of taking, if I should like it. Perhaps the children might go with me. Shall I ask them?"

"Certainly. They would be delighted. It will be a good opportunity also in which to break the news to them. And, without doubt, they will be very prompt in giving their valuable counsel on the subject. But tell me, my dear, when is this happy event to come off?"

"Early in January. That is to say, if, in the meantime, you can suit yourself with another governess, for I should not think of leaving you until you had supplied my place."

"I should not think of supplying your place with a new governess, my dear.

Indeed, I have other plans. I have been thinking of going to Washington to spend the winter. If you were to remain with us, I should take you; but, as you are to be married, I shall, instead of engaging a private governess, place my children at some good finishing school---- Well----?

Who is there?" suddenly demanded the lady, as a loud rap sounded on the room door.

"Why, it's me! Who should it be?" said the voice of Mrs. Anglesea, as that jovial lady burst into the room, exclaiming: "I was moped all but to death, all alone by my own self in the big parlor ever since breakfast. As well been at Wild Cats'!"

"Oh, come in, Mrs. Anglesea. I do, indeed, owe you an apology. I hope you will excuse me, but--I have been particularly engaged all the forenoon,"

said the mistress of Mondreer, as she arose and placed a chair for her guest.

"Thanky'! I hope I haven't interrupted you?" said the lady from the gold mines, dropping into the seat.

"Oh, no. We are quite at leisure now," replied Mrs. Force.

"I wouldn't have disturbed you by coming here, only I declare to man, I have been in every room in the house looking for some one to talk to, without finding a soul. And I even went into the kitchen, to talk to the cook, but she was out, and there wasn't a soul there, though the pot was b'ilin' over, and the goose was burning in the roaster. So I sat down on a stool on the hearth, and basted the goose and turned it, and much thanks I got for my pains. For presently, when the cook come back with a pa.s.sel of cold mince pies to be put in the oven and warmed--she had been to the storeroom to fetch 'em--she as much as told me my room was better'n my company, or words to them effects. Leastways, she did say as ladies what was visitors hadn't no business in her kitchen. So then I come right in here."

"Our cook only wished to show her respect for you, and to do you honor; but, being a very simple and ignorant negro woman, she did not know how to do so politely and properly," soothingly replied the lady of the house.

"What I would like is to be useful, and to do somethink to help earn my keep. But, with so many folks about the place. I don't see as there's any room for me, or anythink to do; so I reckon I had better vamoose the ranch," said the lady from Wild Cats', but without the least loss of temper.

"I beg you to believe that we are all very much pleased to have you remain with us just as long as you can make it convenient to do so," replied Mrs.

Force, with sincere hospitality; for she had nothing but good feeling toward the honest woman who was her chance guest.

"Thanky'. I knowed that. But, you see, I don't want to dress up in my best clothes every day, and sit in the big parlor, with my hands crossed before me in idleness, all day long. It seems like a sinful wasting of time, in one like me, who for cooking, washing and ironing, or scrubbing, sweeping, and dusting, hasn't her betters in this univarsal world!" said the colonel's wife.

"You want something to employ your time----" began Mrs. Force.

"You bet!" interjected her guest.

"Well, then, suppose you let me teach you how to do this silk embroidery.

It is beautiful and attractive fancywork, and very easy to learn," said Mrs. Force, holding out her frame, on which was stretched the half-finished cover of a foot cushion.

"What! that rubbish?" disdainfully inquired the Wild Cats' lady. "No, thanky'! You can buy a great deal prettier things than that in any of the fancy stores for less money than the things cost to make it with, let alone the lost time! No, ma'am! If I must waste all the days of my life, let it be in honest, barefaced idleness, like I'm a-doing of now, and not in pretending to work--playing at work, like you ladies here! I beg all your pardons! I never meant no offense, but I'm bound to tell the truth!"

"No offense is taken; but we think our handiwork is a little more real, fine, delicate and substantial than the machine work sold in shops,"

replied Mrs. Force, in some delicate, deprecating defense of her embroidery.

Before Mrs. Anglesea could reply, the door was opened by Mr. Force, who had just come in from his daily ride around his plantation.

He greeted all the ladies present, and the conversation became general.

A little later on, Leonidas and the girls came in from their walk, and the family party separated to get ready for dinner, and at the usual hour met again around the table.

CHAPTER XLIII

LE GOES TO JOIN HIS SHIP

The next morning Dr. Ingle called to keep an appointment with Miss Meeke.

He came in his gig to take her to the village to inspect a certain house that he thought of leasing. But she ordered him to send his gig to the stable, and let his horse rest, while he availed himself of the family carriage in which to take her and her invited company, her little pupils, to see the house on trial.

And these being the days of her power and his slavery, he obeyed without a murmur, and gave up his antic.i.p.ated _tete-a-tete_ drive with his betrothed, with as good a grace as he could a.s.sume.

Miss Meeke then gave her impromptu invitation to her little friends to accompany her in a drive; and, as they eagerly accepted the invitation, she sent Wynnette to order the carriage; all this was done according to a prearrangement with Mrs. Force.

"And we will not interrupt you and Leonidas all day long, for we are going to take lunch with us in the carriage, and we won't be home till night--maybe not till morning!

"'Till daylight doth appear,'"

sang Wynnette, as she kissed her elder sister good-by, before running out to jump into the carriage.

Odalite and Leonidas, standing at the front window of the drawing room, watched their departure until the carriage pa.s.sed through the west gate and rolled out of sight into the woods beyond.