Please give Mammy Susan my dearest love. I wish she could see the flower gardens down here. They are very wonderful. Every house almost has porch-boxes, and no place is too poor or mean to have some bright flowers around it. We went through some real slummy parts yesterday where no one but darkies lived; beautiful old foreign-looking houses that have belonged in days gone by to the wealthy. I don't believe a single window was without flowers. They were growing in tomato cans and old broken jars and pots, but flowers don't mind what they are in just so the people who plant them love them and know how to attend to them. They seemed to me to be making a braver show than they do when they boast brass jardinières.
I can't help thinking what Cousin Park Garnett would say if she knew that Mr. Tucker had left us alone in Charleston with a perfectly strange lady to chaperone us. I reckon she would throw about a million aristocratic fits.
I don't know how long we will be here. It will depend on Mr. Tucker. I think he needs a rest. He seems to me to be not quite himself. I have noticed that he is in a way irascible. That, you know, is not like him, as there never was but one better tempered man in all the world. You see, you were not an afterthought this time, but came first.
I must stop now without telling you about the dear ladies where we are boarding. They are like rare editions of old forgotten poetry, or odd pieces of china no one has used for generations but has kept in a cabinet until one has forgotten whether they are meant for tea or coffee. They are very dignified with us, but I have a notion that the Tucker twins will be able to limber 'em up by hook or crook. I saw the younger one almost smile when Dee took her cat in her arms.
Your devoted daughter,
Page.
CHAPTER XVII
MISS ARABELLA
No ghosts came to disturb my slumbers in the great four-poster, but the early morning sun awoke me long before Tweedles gave any indication of coming to life. I thought for a while I was at Bracken. It must have been the lavender in the sheets and the mocking-bird, who was singing like Caruso just outside of my window. An odor will carry more suggestion than any sight; and sound comes next, I believe. I lay there wondering how long it would be before Mammy Susan would come bringing my bath-water, devoutly praying she would not "het" it up, but let me have it stinging cold from the well.