Two days later a hack rolled up the graveled walk to the white porch, a girl leaped out and bounded up the steps, her cheeks flushed, her wide open blue eyes dancing with excitement.

She was evidently surprised to find that Cleo was an octoroon, blushed and extended her hand with a timid hesitating look:

"This--this--is Cleo--the major's housekeeper?" she asked.

The quick eye of the woman took in at a glance the charm of the shy personality and the loneliness of the young soul that looked out from her expressive eyes.

"Yes," she answered mechanically.

"I'm so sorry that the major's away--the driver told me----"

"Oh, it's all right," Cleo said with a smile, "he wrote us to make you feel at home. Just walk right in, your room is all ready."

"Thank you so much," Helen responded, drawing a deep breath and looking over the lawn with its green gra.s.s, its dense hedges and wonderful cl.u.s.ters of roses in full bloom. "How beautiful the South is--far more beautiful than I had dreamed! And the perfume of these roses--why, the air is just drowsy with their honey! We have gorgeous roses in the North, but I never smelled them in the open before"--she paused and breathed deeply again and again--"Oh, it's fairyland--I'll never want to go!"

"I hope you won't," Cleo said earnestly.

"The major asked me to stay as long as I wished. I have his letter here"--she drew the letter from her bag and opened it--"see what he says: 'Please come at once to my home for as long as you can stay'--now wasn't that sweet of him?"

"Very," was the strained reply.

The girl's sensitive ear caught the queer note in Cleo's voice and looked at her with a start.

"Come, I must show you to your room," she added, hurriedly opening the door for Helen to pa.s.s.

The keen eyes of the woman were scanning the girl and estimating her character with increasing satisfaction. She walked with exquisite grace.

Her figure was almost the exact counterpart of her own at twenty--Helen's a little fuller, the arms larger but more beautiful. The slender wrists and perfectly moulded hand would have made a painter beg for a sitting. Her eyes were deep blue and her hair the richest chestnut brown, ma.s.sive and slightly waving, her complexion the perfect white and red of the Northern girl who had breathed the pure air of the fields and hills. The sure, swift, easy way in which she walked told of perfect health and exhaustless vitality. Her voice was low and sweet and full of shy tenderness.

A smile of triumph flashed from Cleo's greenish eyes as she watched her swiftly cross the hall toward the stairs.

"I'll win!" she exclaimed softly.

Helen turned sharply.

"Did you speak to me?" she asked blushing.

"No. I was just thinking aloud."

"Excuse me, I thought you said something to me--"

"It would have been something very nice if I had," Cleo said with a friendly smile.

"Thank you--oh, I feel that I'm going to be so happy here!"

"I hope so."

"When do you think the major will come?"

The woman's face clouded in spite of her effort at self-control:

"It may be a month or more."

"Oh, I'm so anxious to see him! He has been acting for my old guardian, who is somewhere abroad, ever since I can remember. I've begged and begged him to come to see me, but he never came. It was so far away, I suppose. He never even sent me his picture, though I've asked him often. What sort of a man is he?"

Cleo smiled and hesitated, and then spoke with apparent carelessness:

"A very striking looking man."

"With a kind face?"

"A very stern one, clean shaven, with deep set eyes, a firm mouth, a strong jaw that can be cruel when he wishes, a shock of thick iron gray hair, tall, very tall and well built. He weighs two hundred and fifteen now--he was very thin when young."

"And his voice?"

"Gentle, but sometimes hard as steel when he wishes it to be."

"Oh, I'll be scared to death when I see him! I had pictured him just the opposite."

"How?"

"Why, I hardly know--but I thought his voice would be always gentle like I imagine a Southern father's who loved his children very much. And I thought his hair would be blonde, with a kind face and friendly laughing eyes--blue, like mine. His eyes aren't blue?"

"Dark brown."

"I know I'll run when he comes."

"We'll make you feel at home and you'll not be afraid. Mr. Tom will be here to lunch in a few minutes and I'll introduce you."

"Then I must dress at once!"

"The first door at the head of the stairs--your trunk has already been taken up."

Cleo watched the swift, strong, young form mount the stairs.

"It's absolutely certain!" she cried under her breath. "I'll win--I'll win!"

She broke into a low laugh and hurried to set the table in a bower of the sweetest roses that were in bloom. Their languorous odor filled the house.

Helen was waiting in the old-fashioned parlor when Tom's step echoed on the stoop. Cleo hurried to meet him on the porch.

His face clouded with a scowl:

"She's here?"

"Yes, Mr. Handsome Boy," Cleo answered cheerfully. "And lunch is ready--do rub that awful scowl off your face and look like you're glad."

"Well, I'm not--so what's the use? It'll be a mess to have a girl on my hands day and night and I've got no time for it. I wish Dad was here. I know I'll hate the sight of her."