“Did I not tell you?” asked Mrs. McVeigh. “I meant to. Gertrude’s note mentioned that her uncle was under the care of our friend, the young medical student, so you will hear the very latest of your beloved Paris.”
“Charming! It is to be hoped he will visit us soon. This little woman”––and she nodded towards Louise––“must be treated for homesickness; you observe her depression since we left the cities? Dr. Delaven will be an admirable cure for that.”
“Your Louise will perhaps cure herself when she sees a home again,” remarked Mrs. McVeigh; “it is life in a carriage she has perhaps grown tired of.”
“Madame is pleased to tease me as people tease children for being afraid in the dark,” explained Louise. “I am not afraid, but the silence does give one a chill. I shall be glad to reach the door of your house.”
“And we must hasten. Remember all the messages, Pluto; bring your Miss Lena tomorrow and any of the others who will come.”
“I remember, sure. Glad I was first to see yo’ all back––good night.”
The other colored men in the background had lost all interest in the ’possum hunt, and were intent listeners to the conversation. Old Nelse, who had kept up to the rest with much difficulty, now pushed himself forward for a nearer look into the carriage. Mrs. McVeigh did not notice him. But he startled the Marquise as he thrust his white bushy head and aged face over the wheel just as they were starting, and the woman Louise drew back with a gasp of actual fear.
“What a stare he gave us!” she said, as they rolled away from the group by the roadside. “That old man had eyes 180 like augers, and he seemed to look through me––may I ask if he, also, is of your plantation, Madame?”
“Indeed, he is not,” was Mrs. McVeigh’s reassuring answer. “But he did not really mean to be impertinent; just some childish old ‘uncle’ who is allowed special privileges, I suppose. No; you won’t see any one like that at the Terrace. I can’t think who it could be unless it is Nelse, an old free man of Loring’s; and Nelse used to have better manners than that, but he is very old––nearly ninety, they say. I don’t imagine he knows his own age exactly––few of the older ones do.”
Pluto caught the old man by the shoulder and fairly lifted him out of the road as the carriage started.