“Ah you Miss Cook?” she asked, in the soft slurring accent.
I bowed.
“Ah am Mrs. DeVere,” she said. “Come in, and look out for that dam mule. I can’t keep him out of the house.”
I went in the parlor and looked about me in amazement. The room was magnificently furnished, but I could see the Southern sloth and carelessness visible everywhere. A wheelbarrow full of dried mortar stood in one corner that had been left there when the masons built the house. Five or six chickens were roosting on the piano and a pair of pants were hanging on the chandelier.
Mrs. DeVere had a pale, aristocratic face, with Grecian features, and snowy hair arranged carefully in becoming ringlets. She was dressed in black satin and wore flashing diamonds on her hands and at her throat. Her eyes were black and piercing and her eyebrows dark. As I took my seat, she drew a long piece of plug tobacco from a silver card receiver, and bit off a chew.
“Do you indulge?” she asked smilingly.
I shook my head.
“The h——l you don’t!” she replied.
Just then a horse dashed up to the verandah—or gallery, as they call it in Texas—and someone dismounted and entered the room.