At this moment he saw Dolly crossing the room with the child in her arms. It was only for an instant, and yet he noted the unspeakable tenderness which pervaded her att.i.tude and movement. He was reminded of a picture of a Madonna he had seen in a gallery in New York. The crying of the child had ceased; there was scarcely any sound in the cabin, for Dolly's tread was as light as falling snow.

From the doorway came Tobe Barnett. He approached Mostyn in a most dejected mien.

"This is Mr. Mostyn, ain't it?" he asked. "I heard Tom Drake say they was expectin' you up."

The banker nodded. "How do you think the baby is now?" he asked, considerately.

"Only the Lord could answer that, sir," the man sighed. "I believe it would have died in the night if Miss Dolly hadn't got out o' bed an'

come over."

"I was half awake," Mostyn said. "I thought I heard some one calling out at the gate. It was about two o'clock, I think."

"That was the fust time, sir. The second time was just before daybreak. I didn't go for her that time. She come of her own accord--said she jest couldn't git back to sleep. She loves children, Mr. Mostyn, an' she seems to think as much o' Robby as if he was her own. I ketched 'er cryin' last night when she was settin' waitin' in the dark for 'im to git to sleep. La, la, folks brag powerful on Miss Dolly, but they don't know half o' the good she does on the quiet. She tries to keep 'em from findin' out what she does. I know I'm grateful to 'er. If the Lord don't give me a chance to repay 'er for her kindness to me an' mine I'll never be satisfied." The speaker's voice had grown husky, and he now choked up. Silence fell. It was broken by a sweet voice in the cabin humming an old plantation lullaby. There was a thumping of a rockerless chair on the floor. Presently the mother of the child came out. She blinked from the staring blue eyes which she timidly raised to Mostyn's face. Her dress was a poor drab rag of a thing which hung limply over her thin form. Her hair was tawny and drawn into a tight, unbecoming knot at the back of her head. No collar of any sort hid her sun-browned, bony neck.

"Miss Dolly said please not wait for her," she faltered. "Breakfast at the house will be over. She's done give the child the medicine an'

wants to put it to sleep. It will sleep for her, but won't for me or Tobe. We have sent for a doctor, but we don't know whether he will come or not. Doctors can't afford to bother with real pore folks as much out o' the way as this is."

"He won't be likely to come," Barnett sighed. "They are all out for cases whar they kin git ready cash an' plenty of it."

Mostyn turned away. What a wonderful girl Dolly was, he said to himself, as he strode along, his heart beating with strange new elation. He was sure she still liked him. She showed it in her eyes, in her tone of voice. She had not forgotten his last talk with her; she was so young, so impressionable, and, withal, so genuine!

At the front gate he saw John Webb waiting for him. "You'd better hurry," Webb smiled, as he swung the gate open. "The bell's done rung.

I seed you an' Dolly walkin' off, an' I was afeared you'd git cold grub. As for her, she don't care when she eats or what is set before her."

CHAPTER VI

It was the following Tuesday. Dolly, with a bundle of books and written exercises under her arm, was returning from school. Close behind her walked George and Ann.

"I'm ashamed of you both," Dolly said, with a frown. "We've got company, and you are both as black as the pot. If I were you I'd certainly stop at the branch and wash the dirt off before getting home."

"That's a good idea," George laughed. "Come on, Sis!" He caught the struggling Ann by the arm and began to drag her toward the stream.

"I'll give you a good ducking. Dol' said I could."

Leaving them quarreling, and even exchanging mild blows, Dolly walked on. "They are beyond me--beyond _anybody_ except an army of soldiers with guns pointed," she said. "I don't know what Mr. Mostyn thinks of us, I'm sure. People don't live that way in Atlanta--that is, _nice_ people don't; but he really doesn't seem to care much. He doesn't seem to notice the mistakes father and mother make, and he lets Uncle John talk by the hour about any trivial thing. I wonder if he really, _really_ likes me--as--as much as he seems to. It has been three years since he first hinted at it, and, oh, my! I must have been as gawky and silly as Ann. Still, you never can tell; the heart must have a lot to do with it. I wasn't thinking of looks, or clothes, or the rich man they all said he was, and I guess he wasn't thinking of anything but--"

She checked herself; the blood had mounted to her face, and she felt it wildly throbbing in the veins. "Anyway, he seems to like to be with me now even more than he did then. He listens to all I say--doesn't miss a word, and looks at me as if--as if--" Again she checked herself; her plump breast rose high, and a tremulous sigh escaped her lips. "Well,"

she finished, as she opened the gate and saw her mother in the doorway, "people may say what they like, but I don't believe anybody can love but once in life, either man or woman. G.o.d means it that way just as He doesn't let the same sweet flower bloom twice on the same stem."

Mrs. Drake had advanced to the edge of the porch. "Hurry up," she said, eagerly. "Miss Stella Munson is in my room waiting for you. She come at two o'clock and has been here ever since."

"What does she want?" Dolly asked, putting her books down on the upper step of the porch.

"I don't want to tell you till you see it," Mrs. Drake said, smiling mysteriously; "it is by all odds the prettiest thing you ever laid eyes on, an' she says she is willin' to let it go for the bare cost of the material. She is in a sort o' tight for cash."

"A hat?" Dolly inquired, eagerly.

"Something you need worse than a hat," the mother smiled. "It is a dress--an organdie, a regular beauty. She made it for Mary Cobb, and you know Mary always orders the best, but, the poor girl's mother bein'

dead, the dress come back on Miss Stella's hands. She could force Mary to stick to her agreement, but she hates to do it when the girl has to put on black and is in so much trouble. Even as it is, you wouldn't have had the chance at it, but you and Mary are exactly of a size, an'

there'll be no alterations to make."

"Oh, I want to see it!" Dolly sprang lightly up the steps and hurried into her mother's room on the right of the hall, where a tall, angular, middle-aged spinster sat with her stained and needle-p.r.i.c.ked fingers linked in her lap.

"How are you, Miss Stella?" she cried, kissing the thin cheek cordially. "I've already heard about that dress. Winnie Mayfield helped Mary pick out the cloth and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and she said you would make it the sweetest thing in the valley. Pink is my color. Where is--oh!" She had descried it as it lay on the bed, and with hands clasped in delight, she sprang toward it. "Oh, it is a dream--a dream, Miss Stella! You are an artist."

She picked the flimsy garment up and held it at arm's length. Then she hung it on one of the tall bed-posts and stood back to admire it, uttering little e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of delight. "I know it will fit. I wore one of Mary's dresses to a party one night, and it was exactly right in every way. Oh, oh, what a beauty! You are a wonder. You could get rich in a city."

"I think Miss Stella is trying to advertise her work," Mrs. Drake jested. "She knows Mr. Mostyn will see it, and he'd have to talk about it. Town men are close observers of what girls put on--more so, by a long shot, than country men. I wouldn't be surprised if some rich person wrote to you to come down to Atlanta, Miss Stella."

Dolly was dancing about the room like a happy child, now placing herself in one position, then another, in order to view the dress from every possible point of vantage. She even went out into the hall and sauntered back as if to surprise herself by a sudden sight of the treasure.

"Stop your silliness!" her mother laughingly chided her. "You are a regular circus clown or monkey in a cage when you try yourself."

"I just want you to put it on, Dolly," the seamstress said, with elation. "All the time I was at work on it I kept thinking how nice it would look on you. Mary is plain; I reckon there is no harm in saying that, even if her mother _is_ dead."

"She will look better in black," said Mrs. Drake, "or pure white.

Colors as full of life as this dress has would die dead on a dingy complexion like Mary's, or any of the Cobb women, for that matter. They look for the world as if they lived on coffee and couldn't git it out of their systems. Dolly, shuck off your dress and try it on."

Dolly needed no urging. In her excitement she forgot to correct her mother's speech, which she would have done on any other occasion, and began at once to divest her slender form of her waist and skirt, dropping the latter at her feet and springing lightly out of the circular heap. The seamstress took up the dress carefully and held it in readiness.

"You will be a regular b.u.t.terfly in it," she said, laughingly. "You are light on your feet as a gra.s.shopper anyway."

While the two women were b.u.t.toning and hooking the garment on her Dolly kept up a running fire of amusing comments, arching her beautiful bare neck as she eyed herself in the mirror on the bureau.

"It will come in handy for meeting on the First Sunday," Mrs. Drake remarked. "Folks will have on their best if the weather is fine, an' I don't see no sign o' rain. It will make Ann awful jealous; she is just at the age to think she is as big as anybody, an' don't seem to remember that Dolly makes 'er own money. But Dolly's to blame for that; she spoils Ann constantly by letting her wear things she ought to keep for herself."

"Growing girls are all that way about things to put on," mumbled Miss Munson, the corner of her mouth full of pins. "I know _I_ had all sorts o' high an' mighty ideas. I fell in love with a widower old enough to be my grandfather. And I was--stand a little to the right, please.

There, that is all right. Quit wiggling. I was such a fool about him, and showed it so plain that it turned the old scamp's head. He actually called to see me one night. Oh, it was exciting! Father took down his shotgun from the rack over the fireplace and ordered him off the place.

Then he spanked me--father spanked me good and sound and made me go to bed. You may say what you please, but that sort o' medicine will certainly cure a certain brand o' love. It did more to convince me that I was not grown than anything else had ever done. From that day on I hated the sight of that man. All at once he looked to me as old as Santa Claus. I had a sort of smarting feeling every time I thought of him, and he did look ridiculous that night as he broke an' run across the yard with two of our dogs after him."

"Oh, _isn't_ it lovely?" Dolly was now before the looking-gla.s.s, bending right and left, stepping back and then forward, fluffing out her rich hair, her cheeks flushed, her eyes gleaming with delight.

"I wish you could just stand off and take a good look at yourself, Dolly," Mrs. Drake cried, enthusiastically. "I simply don't know what to compare you to. Where you got your good looks I can't imagine. But mother used to say that _her_ mother in Virginia come of a long line of noted beauties. Our folks away back, Miss Stella, as maybe you know, had fine blood in 'em."

"It certainly crops out in Dolly," Miss Munson declared. "I've heard folks say they took their little ones to school just to get a chance to set and look at her while she was teaching. I know that I, myself, have always--"

"Oh, you both make me sick--you make me talk slang, too," Dolly said, impatiently. "I'm not good-looking--that is, nothing to brag about--but, Miss Stella, this dress would make a scarecrow look like an angel, and it _does_ fit. Poor Mary! I hope she won't see it on me. It is hard enough to lose a mother without--"

"Go out on the gra.s.s and walk about," Mrs. Drake urged her. "An' let us look at you from the window. I want to see how you look at a distance."

"Do you think I'm crazy?" Dolly demanded, but as merrily as a child playing a game, she lifted the skirt from the floor and lightly tripped away. The watchers saw her go down the porch steps with the majestic grace of a young queen and move along the graveled walk toward the gate. At this point an unexpected thing happened. John Webb and Mostyn had been fishing and were returning in a buggy. The banker got out and came in at the gate just as Dolly, seeing him, was turning to retreat into the house.

"Hold on, do, please!" Mostyn cried out.

Dolly hesitated for a moment, and then, drawing herself erect, she stood and waited for him quite as if there was nothing unusual in what was taking place.