"Oh, but I like to call you Sophy," he responded airily. "And really, you shouldn't mind. I've called people lots worse things than Sophy, in my time! But then," he added, "I didn't happen to like them. As for you, I find you a very likeable being, Sophy; upon my word, extremely likeable!"
"Thank you," said I. I wasn't anxious to hear The Author tell me how likable he found me; at least, not yet.
For pride's sake as well as for the sake of custom—and in South Carolina custom has all the power of a fetish—Mrs. Scarboro would have died rather than vary by one jot or tittle her usual refreshments, or wear a new frock, on that particular night. Yet the occasion, despite its mild diversions, was distinctly epochal, in that it marked the reunion of Hyndsville. Even Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, for the first time, put in his decorative appearance, to The Author's fidgety surprise. He played a highly creditable game of bridge. And after a while he sang "Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young Charms," so exquisitely that a hushed and rapturous silence fell upon everybody, and the old ladies and gentlemen present held their hands before misty eyes. They used to sing that song when the old men were boy soldiers marching off to the tune of "The Bonnie Blue Flag," and the old ladies were ringleted girls in hoop-skirts bidding them good-by.
"My dear boy," Mrs. Scarboro told him, with great feeling, "you have been forgetting that you're a cousin of mine. Your mother and I were girls together. I want you to meet some other old friends of hers and your grandfather's," and she carried him off to a group of those wonderful old ladies who grow to purest perfection in South Carolina—low-voiced lovely old ladies, dressed in black silk, with cameo brooches at their throats, and lace caps on their white hair.
A little group of old gentlemen immediately foregathered with them. They knew who was and wasn't kin to Sally Hynds's son, unto the seventh generation.
"They've begun on the begats," chuckled The Author, "First Book of Chronicles, Chapters One to Four."
"Jelnik's really kin to them, and he ought to pay for the privilege," said Mr. Johnson.
The Author looked at the old ladies, on whose delicate withered hands the wedding-rings hung loosely, and at the erect old gentlemen with white goatees, and something whimsically tender came into his clever face.
"It is worth the price," he said, very gently—for him.