“Sukey” was Miss Grandiere, a tall, handsome and dignified maiden lady of about forty years of age. She had a shapely head, regular features, fair complexion, blue eyes and brown hair, brushed away from her forehead, and twisted into a roll on the top of her head.
She wore a plain, dark, calico gown, made with a short waist, tight sleeves, and long, narrow skirt, and a plain, white, muslin handkerchief around her neck, and pinned firmly across her bosom.
She stood upon the rudest sort of porch, built of rough pine boards, and shaded by hop vines, now withered under the wintry air.
Yet homely as were her attire and surroundings, it seemed as inappropriate for any one to call the stately Susannah Grandiere “Sukey,” as it is for some writers to refer to England’s magnificent Elizabeth as “Queen Bess.”
Beside this dignified dame stood a very dainty, delicate and pathetic-looking little girl of about twelve years of age, who leaned half fondly, half lazily against the lady’s side.
She was Miss Grandiere’s niece, shadow and worshiper. Her name was Rosemary Hedge, and she was the only and orphan child of Miss Grandiere’s widowed sister, Mrs. Dorothy Hedge, the writer of the note.
Rosemary was a slight, tiny, fragile creature, with a mere slip of a figure, and mites of hands and feet. She had a thin face, a pale rose complexion, large, light blue eyes, and black hair, which she wore as children do now—partly banged across her forehead, but mostly hanging down her shoulders. She was clothed in a prim, blue, calico gown, with a short waist, high neck, tight sleeves, and a skirt all the way down to her feet, which were shod in coarse leather shoes over home-knit, gray stockings.
The child was looking up to her aunt in great anxiety while the latter read the letter brought by the negro boy, Dan, who stood, torn hat in hand, holding the bridle of a short, fat, white cob, Jovial by name, commonly called “Jo.”
“Is it for me to go home? Oh, Aunt Sukey, is it for me to go home?” uneasily inquired the little girl, as the lady folded the letter.
“No, child, no,” soothingly replied the lady. “It is only to ask us both to ride four miles, and walk one, for the sake of eating ‘Hot Biscuits,’ in capital letters, for supper.”