"I can manage Levi, son. Travelling is real easy these days. It will take management, but I can get what I want."
"You would understand if you saw her."
Sandy's voice trailed off forgetful of the woman at whose knees he knelt.
"She can smile and make right merry, but you would know and understand. She is such a pretty, sweet thing, but she has the iron of the hills in her. She must"—again Sandy's voice shook with passion,—"she must have happiness! If—if the noise and confusion of the city have distracted her she must come back to the mountains. Lans will agree to this—I do not doubt him! She must not—kill herself—you will know when you see her. You must come back and tell me—you will?"
"I will, son."
Matilda yearned to show him Olive Treadwell's letter, but something kept her from doing it. She wanted to do what she could for Sandy in her own way, and suddenly she felt herself a giant of strength and purpose.
"Travel alone!" she said to Levi later when she had cowed the poor man by her determination and exactions, "of course I can travel alone. Am I an idiot, Levi, or a fool? Haven't I a good American tongue to ask questions with? I remember our mother once told us she would spank us well if we ever got lost in a place where folks talked the same language we did. You put me on the train at The Forge with a through seat in a Pullman, telegraph to Mary Jane to meet me in New York, and I guess I can manage."
"But, 'Tilda, what on earth has seized you to act so uncertain in the middle of this visit? What will they think of you and me?"
Then Matilda made her master stroke and, by virtue of her sex-privilege, completed her triumph over her brother.
"Levi," she said—she was standing before him, her thin hands on his shoulders—"I ain't ever had what you might call a real fling where my emotions and sentiments were concerned. Let go of me, just this once, and trust me! I've always been sort of held back. First it was father and mother; then Caroline, and lastly you! I ain't never done exactly what I wanted to do without explaining, and now I want to be left free even if I die for it!"