"They didn't know it," laughed Eugenia. "I come like a bolt from the blue."
Mrs. Webb smiled coldly. She was just as the girl had known her in childhood—only the high black pompadour was now white. She still wore her stiff black silk gown, fastened at the throat by a Confederate button set in a brooch.
"You are like yourself and no one else," said Eugenia simply. "But tell me of Dudley—where is he?"
Mrs. Webb's face softened slightly.
"His practice is in Richmond now," she answered. "You know he studied law and took great honours at college. But his ambitions, I fear, are political. I don't like politics. They aren't for honest men."
Eugenia did not smile. She merely nodded assent and, saying good-bye pleasantly, jolted out of Kingsborough into the Old Stage Road.
"When did Mrs. Webb dine at home, Sampson?" she asked suddenly after a long silence.
"Hit wa'n' onc't en it wa'n' twice," said Sampson thoughtfully. "Mo' like hit wuz tree times. She done been dar monst'ous often dis yer winter, an' de mo' she come de mo' 'ristocratical she 'pear ter git. Dar wa'n' no placin' her, nohow. We done sot 'er by Ole Mis' Grissel w'en she wuz 'live, an' we done sot 'er by Miss Chris, an' we done sot 'er by Marse Tom hisse'f, an', fo' de Lawd, I ain' never seen 'er congeal yit."
But Eugenia was seeking other information. "Is Uncle Ish well? And Aunt Verbeny, and the dogs? and did you bury Jim in the graveyard?"
"Dey's all well," replied Sampson, flicking at a horsefly on the sorrel's back, "an' Jim, he's well en buried. Marse Tom sot up er boa'd des' like you tell 'im."