“Lucas, stop!” cried Virginia.
Lucas pulled the horses up so suddenly that one old fellow looked back over his shoulder.
“Yes, Miss Jinny?”
“Drive back to Quantah’s place, Lucas.”
The fat old horses turned obediently. Lucas said nothing. For once he restrained that racial quality which makes the faithful colored servant the intimate adviser and guardian of “his family.” He had a very clear understanding of Miss Jinny’s motives, he knew Miss Jinny. For all that, he felt that this time she could be trusted to go her own way—as long as he was in attendance, to exercise, at the crucial moment, his worldly wisdom.
The old wagonette, turning clumsily because of its length, was moving along the broken bit of road which led around the elbow of the wood into the Quantah clearing. The wood was an exquisite place, delicately fringed along its edges with yellow patches of goldenrod and the purplish white mist of asters. Through slender tree-stems Virginia began to see the house more plainly.
The side door stood open, and a tall, slatternly woman was feeding chickens, holding an old tin saucepan in the hollow of her arm. As the wagonette appeared she raised her eyes from the fowls long enough to stare, but went on throwing scraps out by the fistful, her hard mouth drawn into forbidding lines.
Lucas drew rein and Virginia descended.
“Is Mrs. William Carter here?” she asked quietly.
Mrs. Quantah emptied the pan and looked around her.