Nicholas looked about the common little room—at the coarse lace curtains, the crude chromos, the distorted vases—and returned to his question.
"You promised me you'd wear it," he went on.
"Wear my best alpaca every day?" she demanded suspiciously. "I wouldn't have it on more'n an hour befo' one of them worthless niggers would have spilt bacon gravy all over it. There ain't been no peace in this house since you sent those no 'count darkies here to help me. If yo' pa was 'live, he'd turn them out bag an' baggage befo' sundown. Lord, Lord, when I think of what yo' poor pa would say if he was to walk in now an' find them creeturs in the kitchen."
Her stepson smiled.
"Now, if you'll sit still a moment, I'll tell you a piece of news," he said.
"You ain't thinkin' of gettin' married, air you?" inquired Marthy Burr with sudden keenness.
"Married!" He laughed aloud. "I've no time for such nonsense. Listen—no, let the baby alone, she isn't choking. If the Powers agree, and the Democratic Party triumphs in November, I shall be Governor of Virginia on the first of January."
His stepmother looked at him in a dazed way, her glance wandering from his face to the baby with the string of spools. There was a pleased light in her eyes, but he saw that she was striving in vain to grasp the full significance of his words.
"Well, well," she said at last. "I al'ays told Amos you wa'nt no fool—but who'd have thought it!"