Everything was put in order, the house cleaned and the cabins newly whitewashed, to brighten the place for the daughter's return. But the day looked dull when she came with the little child crying in the nurse's arms. There were tears and embraces and tremulous words of love.  
On the steps my Young Mistress turned to the nurse and said, "Give her to me, Titine." And at this moment I felt that an arrow from a bow in the sky had shot through me. Titine! I did not know that the world had presumed to hold a beauty and a charm so exquisite. Her complexion was as the richest cream, her hair showed the merest suggestion of a waver rather than a negro kink, her eyes were black-blue, and her lips—Was it Solomon who said "her lips are as a thread of scarlet"? I was a man now, grown to full strength and passion—from the moment I saw that French, Spanish, negro, Anglo-Saxon girl. Never before had I seen anyone to thrill me; surely not a negress, and certainly I had not presumed to [Pg 226]acknowledge the charms of a white woman. I did not fall at once in love with Titine; I was too excited, too breathless as I gazed upon her. I reminded myself of an animal, beholding for the first time a female of his own species—and I verily believe that I felt a desire to throw my head up and scream like a panther.
 
"Dan," Old Miss cried, "why don't you bring in the things? What do you want to stand there for like a chicken with the gapes?"
 
In this comparison there was something so appropriate that I could not suppress a laugh, though I took care to hide it from Old Miss. Miss May turned to the girl and told her to help me bring in the bags, but Old Miss objected. "Let her rest, May," she said. "Dan hasn't been doing a thing. He's pretty much as you left him—scarcely worth his salt."
 
This was a fine recommendation to Titine, and I felt the blood mount to my face, as I turned toward the carriage at the gate. But I glanced back and saw the girl following me with her eyes; and I wondered, selfishly enough, why she had not insisted upon helping me, though I needed no assistance, for I was strong enough at that moment to seize all the bags at once and hurl them over the house.
 
I saw but little of Titine that afternoon (or evening[Pg 227] as we termed it), for the child was fretful and put a claim upon nearly all her time, but I heard her singing in a room down the hall from our "office," and I stepped about, keeping quick time with the tingling leap of my blood. At the supper hour she came down to stand behind Miss May, and I marched boldly into the dining-room, delighted now to resume a menial service. I stood beside her, but alas! with what scorn did she look at me. The child began to cry and she was sent above, and it was then that I began to hear something of her history. She had belonged to Marston's maiden sister, a peculiar creature who had cared for nothing but Titine and a white woolly dog. The dog died and the mistress, doubling her affection for the girl, sent her to a convent to be educated, greatly to the scandal of her associates. At the old woman's death, of recent date, the girl had fallen to Marston. She complained at this transfer, declaring that her mistress had drawn up a paper to set her free, but the paper could not be found, so she was compelled to submit, stubbornly at first, but after a while becoming so much attached to Miss May that she rejoiced in her good fortune.
 
"She knows as much and is a far better talker than I am," said Miss May.
 
[Pg 228]
 
"Daughter, you must not say that," Old Miss objected. "It cannot be true and it surely is not right."
 
"Very well, mother, I won't say it again, but you will soon find out for yourself."
 
Then they all fell into a family talk, the sudden death of Marston and the entanglement in which his affairs were likely to be found. He was not a good manager, never knew what his income was, and was always in debt. But he was so kind-hearted—and here Miss May wept and the subject was changed.
 
Immediately after supper young master dressed himself to call on Miss Potter, and when he was gone I threw aside my senseless book and went down into the yard, to dodge behind the trees at the corner of the house, hoping to catch sight of Titine on the veranda. At last she came out, with a red cap on her head, and stood with her hands resting on the balustrade, looking far away at the dying pink in the sky. I stepped out boldly and touched my hat. She glanced down at me and tossed her head. But I knew that she was not displeased.
 
"Beautiful evening," I said.
 
"Indeed!"
 
[Pg 229]
 
"This is but one of many of our charming sun-sets."
 
"Ah, then the sun goes down every evening?"
 
"Y-e-s," I stammered, for she was beginning to make me feel foolish.
 
"In the same place?" she asked, cutting her eye at me.
 
"Well, not exactly. But in the West, generally."
 
"Startling."
 
"Oh, not when we have accustomed ourselves to it."
 
"Indeed. But tell me, is salt very high here, or do you use a great deal of it?"
 
"I don't quite understand you."
 
"I heard your old mistress say that you were not worth your salt."
 
"Yes, she would say anything to humiliate me. I inflicted a mortal wound when I began to study with my Young Master."
 
"Oh, you have studied, have you? That was foolish. I committed the same indiscretion."
 
"If you have studied, then it was glorious to study."
 
"It is bad enough not to be worth your salt, but please don't be a fool."
 
"I can't help it. You would rob a philosopher of his wisdom."
 
She laughed, and I believe that had a lancet pricked[Pg 230] an artery my blood would have spurted a mile high. I heard a sharp cry from the child, and it smote my heart, not that the little thing might be suffering, but that I was to be robbed. "I must go," she said.
 
"And shall I stay?"
 
"Yes, if you sleep standing up, like a horse."
 
She was gone, and I stood under the trees, gazing at the cabin lights; and I waited there until the lights began to go out, but the girl did not return. I heard Young Master ride up to the gate, and I went out to take his horse. He walked with me to the stable. He said not a word until we were returning, and then, clutching my arm, he told me that Miss Potter had consented to be his wife. "I am the happiest human being on the face of this broad earth," he said, waving his arm so as to take in the entire universe. "And she says that she will wait till I have made myself famous, for I told her I thought that this would be wise, believing with some of the great thinkers, that while marriage might improve a man's judgment, it might also put out a part of his fire. You know I was born with the idea that I was to become an orator, and I have not run against anything to change my opinion. I feel something surging within me, and all I need is a subject. I can be proud of her, Dan; I am proud[Pg 231] of her, and I must make myself worthy of her pride. What are you so glum about to-night?"
 
"You have seen the girl that came with Miss May?"
 
"Yes, she is a beauty. And she has caught you? I'm glad of it. Oh, it seems that old mother Nature is not disposed to let us drift far apart. In common we felt many an emotion, and love came along to teach one of us what the other did not know. But you don't mean that you have fallen in love with her so soon?"
 
"I don't know anything when I think of her, Mars. Bob. More than half my life seems to be compressed into the few hours she has been under our roof."
 
It was getting late, and Bob went to bed soon after we reached the room, to dream of a love that had leaped to meet his own; and I lay there listening to the faint cries of a child, and the almost silent sounds of foot-falls on the floor, down the hall. In the morning I was up before the sun, dodging about among the trees at the east end of the veranda. At last she came down to freshen her eyes with a glimpse of the dawn-couch, purple with the sun's resurrection.
 
"I am almost persuaded that you are determined to earn your salt, you are up so early," she said with a smile brighter than the new day.
 
[Pg 232]
 
"Is it because you are from the sugar lands of Louisiana that salt is such a novelty to you?" I asked. She did not reply, but stood looking at the hills, far away.
 
"I never get tired of them," she said; "they are so strange and new. We have no hills in our country, you know; nothing but a level stretch as far as the eye can see, and we know that beyond this another level stretch lies, and beyond that, still another. But here, I don't know what's beyond. Blue mystery everywhere."
 
"Some time I will take the buggy and drive you over to the hills," I said, and the light of a new interest flew to her eyes.
 
"Will you? That will be kind. But will they let you take the buggy?"
 
"My young master will give me permission, and we can slip off from Old Miss. Let us go Sunday, after dinner?"
 
This was on a Saturday, and the length of time lying dead between then and Sunday afternoon was to me a sunless, moonless and starless age. But the hour, the minute came, and amidst the half contemptuous titterings and envious glances of the negroes, we drove off from the gate, down a lane, far across two white turn-pikes that streaked a hill and striped a valley, up[Pg 233] through a fern cove to a dark, mysterious spring; and here we left the buggy to climb a crag. She had seen red lumps of sand-stone, but never had she touched a living rock, and at the foot of a cliff, moss-grown and vine-strung, she stood with her head bowed and with her red cap in her hand—a goddess in meditation, a nymph at prayer. I stood apart and in deep reverence looked at her, fearful that my nearness might profane her devotions. I had begun to ascribe to her a super-human quality, a beauty belonging not to this wo............