“Don’t you-all worry so much,” responded the Major. “Miss Edith isn’t saying anything, is she? She knows it’s dark and no one’s going to see her face when she gets home. I don’t know what’s coming to the ladies these days. When I was younger they didn’t let a little thing like a grain of smut interfere with a kiss or two.”
“Then don’t you let him have more than two, Edith,” said Holly. “You heard what he said.”
“Merely a figure of speech, ladies,” replied the Major. “I’ve heard there wasn’t such a thing as a single kiss and I reckon there ain’t such a thing as a pair of ’em; eh, Mr. Winthrop?”
“Always come by the dozen, as I understand it,” answered Winthrop.
Miss Edith gave a shriek.
“I’m powerful glad I’m not riding home with you, Mr. Winthrop!”
“Oh, it washes off quite easily, really!”
The buggy trundled out of sight around the corner of the drive to an accompaniment of laughter and farewells. Miss Rosa was to spend the night at Waynewood, and she and Holly and Winthrop returned to the joggling-board, the girls spreading wraps over their shoulders. There were clouds in the sky, and the air held promise of rain. Holly was somewhat silent and soon dropped out of the conversation altogether. Winthrop and Rosa talked of books. Neither, perhaps, was a great reader, but they had read some books in common and these they discussed. Winthrop liked Miss Rosa far better than Miss Bartram. She was small, pretty in a soft-featured way, quiet of voice and manner, and all-in-all very girlish and sweet. She was a few months younger than Holly. She lived with her brother, Phaeton Carter, on his plantation some eight miles out on the Quitman road. Her parents were dead, but before their deaths, she told him wistfully, she had been all through the North and knew Washington well. Her father had served as Representative for two terms. She aroused Winthrop’s sympathies; there seemed so little ahead of her; marriage perhaps some day with one of their country neighbors, and after that a humdrum existence without any of the glad things her young heart craved. His sympathy showed in his voice, which could be very soft and caressing when it wanted to, and if Rosa dreamed a little that night of an interesting Northerner with sympathetic voice and eyes it wasn’t altogether her fault. Meanwhile they were getting on very well, so well that they almost forgot Holly’s existence. But they were reminded of it very suddenly. Holly jumped off the board and seized Rosa by the hand.
“Bed time,” she announced, shortly.
“Oh, Holly!” cried the girl, in dismay. “Why, it can’t be half-past ten yet!”