Keziah soon made her appearance in the corridor, carrying a bundle.
A stout, healthy-looking negress—her woolly head “toqued” in New Orleans style, with a checkered bandanna—she was an appanage of the defunct storekeeper’s family; specially designed to give to it an air Southern, and of course aristocratic. At this time Mrs Girdwood was not the only Northern lady who selected her servants with an eye to such effect.
Slippers were soon kicked off, and kid boots pulled on in their places. Hats were set coquettishly on the head, and shawls—for the day was rather cool—were thrown loosely over shoulders.
“Come on!” and at the word the cousins glided along the gallery, descended the great stair, tripped across the piazza outside, and then turned off in the direction of the Bath Road.
Once out of sight of the hotel, they changed their course, striking into a path that led more directly toward the cliff.
In less than twenty minutes after, they might have been seen descending it, through one of those sloping ravines that here and there interrupt the continuity of the precipice—Cornelia going first, Julia close after, the turbaned negress, bearing her bundle, in the rear.