Pinckney laughed, but Miss Pinckney as she took the bouquet scarcely noticed either him or Seth, her mind was busy with something else.
She leaned over towards the chauffeur.
“Mind you don’t run over any chickens,” said she.
It was a gorgeous morning, with the sea mists blowing away on the sea wind, swamp-land and river and bayou showing streets and ponds of sapphire through the vanishing haze.
Phyl was in high spirits; the tune of Camptown Races, which a street boy had been whistling as they started, pursued her. Miss Pinckney, dumb through the danger zone where chickens and dogs and nigger children might be run over, found her voice in the open country.
The bunch of flowers presented to her by Seth and which she was holding on her lap started her off.
“I hope it is not a warning,” said she; “wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find Seth Grangerson in his coffin waiting for the flowers to be put on him; what put it in to the darkey’s head to give me them! I don’t know, I’m sure, same thing I suppose that put it into his head to give me impudence.”
“You’ve taken him back,” said Phyl.
“Well, I suppose I have,” said the other in a resigned voice, “and likely to pay for my foolishness.”
Pinckney had said that it was only a two hours’ run from Charleston to Grangerville, but he had reckoned without taking into consideration the badness of some of the roads, and the intricacies of the way, for it was after one o’clock when they reached the little town beyond which, a mile to the West, lay the Colonel’s house.