HELEN'S DESPAIR
An hour afterward, the old nurse found Helen at the piano, her head bowed low over the old yellow keys. “It's gittin' t'wards dinner time, chile,” she said tenderly, “an' time I was dressin' my queen gal for dinner an sendin' her out to get roses in her cheeks.”
“Oh, Mammy, don't—don't dress me that way any more. I am—I am to be—after this—just a mill girl, you know?”
There was a sob and her head sank lower over the piano.
“You may be for a while, but you'll always be a Conway”—and the old woman struck an attitude with her arms akimbo and stood looking at the portraits which hung on the parlor wall.
“That—that—makes it worse, Mammy.” She wiped away her tears and stood up, and her eyes took on a look Aunt Maria had not seen since the old Governor had died. She thought of ghosts and grew nervous before it.
“If my father sends me to work in that place—if he does—” she cried with flaming eyes—“I shall feel that I am disgraced. I cannot hold my head up again. Then you need not be surprised at anything I do.”
“It ain't registered that you're gwine there yet,” and Mammy Maria stroked her head. “But if you does—it won't make no difference whar you are nor what you have to do, you'll always be a Conway an' a lady.”
An hour afterwards, dressed as only Mammy Maria could dress her, Helen had walked out again to the rock under the wild grape vine.