"Yas, suh,—yas, suh!" was the servant's greeting. "Right aroun' dis way, Marse Kenny. Watch out, suh, ailse yo' scrape yo' hat off on dem branches."
He grasped the bit, after his master had dismounted in the weed-covered little roadway at the side of the house, and ceremoniously waved his hand toward the open door.
"Step right in, suh,—yas, suh,—an' make yo'self to home, suh. Sit right down front of de fiah, Marse Kenny. Ah won't be more'n two shakes, suh, stablin'—yas, suh! Come on hyar, yo' Brandy Boy! Ise gwine show yo' whar yo's gwine to be de happies' hoss in—yas, suh,—yas, suh!"
The young man looked long and searchingly through the trees before entering the house, but saw no sign of his neighbours. He thought he detected a slight movement of a curtain in one of the windows,—the parlor window, if his memory served him right.
It was late in the afternoon before he saw either of his relatives. He had had occasional glimpses of the negro servant-girl and also of a gaunt stable-man, both of whom favoured his partially obscured abode with frank interest and curiosity. A clumsy, silent hound came up to the intervening fence several times during the afternoon and inspected the newcomers with seeming indifference, an attitude which misled Zachariah into making advances that were received with alarming ill-temper.
Kenneth was on his front doorstep, contemplating with secret despair the jungle of weeds and shrubbery that lay before him, completely obliterating the ancient path down to the gate. The whole place was overgrown with long, broken weeds, battered into tangled masses by the blasts of winter; at his feet were heaps of smitten burdocks and the dead, smothered stems of hollyhocks, geraniums and other garden plants set out and nurtured with tender care by Rachel Gwyn during her years of occupancy. The house needed painting, the roof required attention, the front gate was half open and immovably imbedded in the earth.
He was not aware of Viola's presence on the other side of the fence dividing the two yards until her voice fell upon his ears. It was clear and sweet and bantering.
"I suppose you are wondering why we haven't weeded the yard for you, brother Kenny."
As he made his way through the weeds to the fence, upon which she rested her elbows while she gazed upon him with a mocking smile in the eyes that lay far back in the shovel-like hood of her black quaker bonnet, he experienced a sudden riotous tumult in the region of his heart. Shaded by the dark, extended wings of the bonnet, her face was like a dusky rose possessed of the human power to smile. The ribbon, drawn close under her chin, was tied in a huge bow-knot, while at the back of her head the soft, loose cap of the bonnet fitted snugly over hair that he knew would gleam with tints of bronze if exposed to the rays of the sinking sun.
"Not at all," he rejoined. "I am wondering just where I'd better begin."