“He right much bettah,” he replied in the same guarded tone. “Doctah he say he be all right in er few days, on’y he gotter lay up er while. Dat was er ugly nip he got f’om dat ’spisable reptyle. Ah reck’n de moc’sins is wuss’n dem ar Floridy yallargaters.”
“Do you think there can be any others about the grounds?”
“No’m. Dey mos’ly keeps ter de ma’shlan’ en on’y runs whah de undah-bresh ez thick. I gwineter fix dat ter-morrow. Mars’ Valiant he tell me ter grub et all out en make er bon-fiah ob it.”
“That’s right, Unc’ Jefferson. Good night, and thank you for coming.”
She started back to the house, when his voice stopped her.
“Mis Shirley, yo’ don’ keer ef de ole man geddahs two er three ob dem roses? Seems lak young mars’ moughty fon’ ob dem. He got one in er glass but et’s mos’ daid now.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, and disappeared in the darkness, returning quickly with a handful which she put in his grasp.
“There!” she whispered, and slipped back through the perfumed dark.
An hour later she stood in the cozy stillness of her bedroom. It was hung in silvery blue with curtains of softly figured shadow-cloth having a misty design of mauve and pink hydrangeas. A tilted mirror on the draped dressing-table had a dark mahogany frame set in upright posts carved in a heavy pattern of grape-leaves. Two candles in silver candlesticks stood before it, their friendly light winking from the fittings of the dark bed, from the polished surface of the desk in the corner and from the old piece of brocade stretched above the mantel, worked like shredded silver cobwebs.