“I leave you young people to do the rest of the sightseeing,” Mrs. Parsons said, and took her breakfast in bed, waited on by a colored maid.
But at noon she appeared, trim and fresh again, in time for luncheon and the ride to the railway station where they took the train for the South.
“Now we’re off for the Land of Cotton!” cried Helen. “This dip into Dixie so far has only been a taste. What adventures are before us now, do you suppose, Ruth?”
Her chum could not tell her. Indeed, neither of them could have imagined quite what was to happen to them before they again turned their faces north for the return journey.
CHAPTER XI—AT THE MERREDITH PLANTATION
The noontide bell at some distant cotton house sent a solemn note—like an alarm—ringing across the lowlands. The warm, sweet smell of the brakes almost overpowered the girls from the North. And lulling their senses, too, were the bird-notes, seemingly from every tree and bush.
Long festoons of moss hung from some of the wide-armed trees. Here and there, cleared hammocks were shaded by mighty oaks which may have been standing when the first white settlers on this coast of the New World established themselves at Georgetown, not many miles away.
Riding in the comfortable open carriage, behind a handsome pair of bay horses, and driven by a liveried coachman with a footman likewise caparisoned on the seat beside him, Ruth and Helen, as guests of Mrs. Rachel Parsons and Nettie, had already come twenty miles from the railroad station.
Despite the moisture and the heat, the girls from the North were enjoying themselves hugely. The week that had passed since they had met Nettie and her aunt at Old Point Comfort had been a most delightful one for the chums.
The long railroad journey south from Richmond had been broken by stops at points of interest, including New Bern, Wilmington, Pee Dee, and finally Charleston. The latter city had interested the girls immensely—quite as much as Richmond.