“Look here, Greenville Female Seminary Simms,” Rickey retorted, “don’t you multiply words with me just because your mammy was working there when you were born and gave you a fancy name! If you’ll promise to be him, I’ll get Miss Mattie Sue to let us make molasses candy.”
CHAPTER XIX
UNDER THE HEMLOCKS
Shirley looked at Valiant with a deepening of her dimple. “Rickey isn’t an aristocrat,” she said: “she’s what we call here poor-white, but she’s got a heart of gold. She’s an orphan, and the neighborhood in general, and Miss Mattie Sue Mabry in particular, have adopted her.”
He hardly heard her words for the painful wonder that was holding him. He had canvassed many theories to explain his father’s letter but such a thing as a duel he had never remotely imagined. His father had taken a man’s life. Was it this thought—whatever the provocation, however justified by the customs of the time and section—that had driven him to self-exile? He recalled himself with an effort, for she was speaking again.
“You’ve found Lovers’ Leap, no doubt?”
“No. This is the first time I’ve been so far from the house. Is it near here?”
“I’ll show it to you.” She held out her hand for the bunch of jessamine and laid it on the broad roots of a tree that were mottled with lichen. “Look there,” she said suddenly; “isn’t that a beauty?”