Stuart was not by her side, nor anywhere in the room. Evidently he had got up and dressed and left while she still slept soundly.
Palma crept out of bed and crossed the floor to open the window, but as she did so the chamber door was opened and the younger of the two negro women came in.
“‘Mornin’, ma’am,” she said brightly, smiling and showing her teeth. “I was jes’ waitin’ outside o’ de do’ fo’ yo’ to wake up, to come in an’ wait on yo’.”
“You must have good ears,” said Palma.
“Middlin’. But w’en I heerd de planks in de flo’ creak, den I knowed yo’ was walkin’ across. I did brung up a pitcher o’ hot water fo’ yo’ an’ put it on de ha’rf—dar it is, ma’am,” said the girl, and she stooped and took up the pitcher and carried it over to the washstand.
“Tell me your name,” said Palma softly.
“Hatty, ma’am,” replied the girl, smiling brightly. And when she smiled it was with a brilliancy unequaled in Palma’s experience of faces. Hatty’s face was of the pure African type. There was not a drop of Caucasian blood in her veins; but she was of the finest African type, with fine crinkling, silky, black hair, with glowing black eyes, so large, soft and shining that, with varying phases they might be called black diamonds, black stars, or—when half closed with smiles or laughter, and veiled with their long, thick, curled, black lashes—sunlit, reed-shaded pools. Her nose was flat; her lips large and red, and her teeth white as ivory. And when she laughed she seemed to be a natural spring of mirth all by herself. And she was almost always laughing, often silently. Few could look on the happy face of the child without smiling in response.
“Well, then, Hatty, I am afraid I am late. I hope I have not kept anybody waiting.”
The girl, who had gone to open the windows, turned and answered shortly:
“Oh, Lor’, no, ma’am! De birds deirselves—w’ich it is de snowbirds, I mean—ain’t been long up, an’ de sun hese’f hasn’ showed ’bove de mount’in, dough he’s riz. See, ma’am!”