"Oh, 'Polyte!" cried Carolina, "what have you been doing?"
"Not a t'ing, Miss Callina. Honest! Only I raised dat mah, en I knows huh!"
Carolina still hesitated until Moultrie brought word that Araby had nipped at Barney's hand, and in a rage he had kicked her. After that, the mare would not allow him to approach, but even at the sight of him she would rear, bite, and kick, so that, being quite useless to her owner, he proposed to sell her,--if not to Carolina, then to some one else.
Hearing that decided the girl. She bought Araby, and sent 'Polyte to fetch her.
The beautiful creature proved as gentle as a lamb, and, even on the day when 'Polyte led her up for Carolina to see, she nosed her new mistress lovingly.
"Why, she seems just as usual," said Carolina, but she did not see 'Polyte's heaving shoulders and convulsed face.
Thus, for the most part, the negroes were Carolina's friends. They not only stood in awe of her body-guard, 'Polyte, who knew them root and branch, good and bad alike, but their childish vanity was tickled by the beauty of the small white marble chapel Carolina built on the estate, which had an organ and stained-glass windows and a gallery for negroes.
This had been Mr. Howard's gift to the little band of Christian Scientists which he had found on his first trip down South, meeting every Sunday on Carolina's cottage porch, which, vine-shaded and screened and furnished daintily, was as large as the cottage itself. He took infinite pleasure in furnishing the finest material and in rushing the work with Northern energy, and personally supervising the building.
He well knew that he could please Carolina in no better way, and, when Rosemary Goddard's husband, the Honourable Lionel Spencer, became president of the turpentine company, which was organized on the basis of Carolina's investigations, and confirmed by Mr. Howard's agents, and it became necessary for the Spencers to live in South Carolina, Rosemary was elected first reader of the little church, and Carolina offered them the use of her cottage until they could build, while she and Cousin Lois took possession of the now completed Guildford mansion.
Things were prospering with the La Grange family. Peachie had become engaged to Sir Hubert Wemyss, who, urged by the example of his friend Lionel Spencer, and the enormous profits of the turpentine company, had invested largely, and, after taking Peachie to England to meet his family and make her bow as Lady Wemyss to the king and queen, he promised to return to America for half of the year.