“Certainly, Mr. Hanscomb. Come in if you wish to. Miss Kimball is here—I think you know her—and the other lady is my friend, Miss Dunstable, from Cincinnati, who has been visiting me for the last week.”
The marshal stepped inside, his assistants close behind him. Rhoda cast a single glance toward the piano and saw thankfully that Marcia was still holding Mary Ellen’s attention. “If only she won’t look around,” was her anxious thought. Then turning to the marshal she said seriously, with a gentle smile:
“You see, there’s no one else visible in here, Mr. Hanscomb, but if you want to look under the piano and up the chimney—” she stopped on a rising inflection and looked at him gravely. His eyes flashed, but he merely sent an inquiring glance around the room, saw that there were no closets or recesses, and then moved toward the door, saying, “Thank you, Miss Ware.”
Rhoda closed the door behind him and leaned against it while she drew a long breath and pressed her lips together tightly for a moment. Then she went back to the piano saying, “Now, Marcia, suppose we let Mary Ellen sing that next verse all alone. I want you to hear her.”
The men on the veranda steps, taking their departure, paused and listened to the closing lines as Mary Ellen, in a voice of mournful sweetness, sang on alone:
“They have taken her to Georgia,
For to wear her life away,
As she toils in the cotton and the cane.”
“That girl makes a right good imitation of the way a darkey’s voice sounds,” said the one who had spoken before. “I reckon she’s practised it.”