Both Doctor John and Doctor Jim, as befitted their stature, were valiant trenchermen; and Robert was a boy; and the lavish delicacies of Abby's serving met with that reception which was the best tribute to their worth. Gaiety made herself handmaid to appetite; and the ale was nutty-mellow from last October; and Mistress Mehitable's old Madeira wine, of which herself partook but sparingly, was fiery-pungent on the tongue. As she toasted him, and her blue eyes sparkled upon him over the glass, Robert wondered anew how Barbara could have wanted to run away from so admirable an aunt. As for Barbara, reduced for a little to silence by supreme content, she sipped at her Angelica cordial, surveyed Mistress Mehitable with grateful ardour, and took it all as largess to herself.
At last, with a happy sigh, she cried, "Oh, if only Uncle Bob could have come in time for this!" And so electric with sympathy was the air that on the word every eye turned and glanced at the door, as if expecting that a wish so well-timed might bring fruition on the instant. There was silence for some seconds.
Then Mistress Mehitable said, "He will be here in a very few days, dear! And then you, Robert, must come to us again without delay. I agree with Barbara that nothing I can think of except Mr. Glenowen's presence could add to our happiness to-night!"
After supper there was music in the candle-lit drawing-room, Mistress Mehitable having a rare gift for the harpsichord, and Doctor Jim a nice art in the rendering of certain old English ballads of the robuster sort. Where they might have seemed to the ladies' ears a trifle more robust than nice, Doctor Jim had fined them down to a fitting delicacy. But they suited his rolling bass, and he loved them because, being Cavalier-born, they appealed to his king-loving sympathies. Doctor Jim was an exemplary Congregationalist, but solely by force of environment, Congregationalism being the creed of all the gentry of that region. Episcopalianism he looked upon with a distrust mingled with affection; but in all other respects he was a king's man, through and through, an aristocrat, and a good-natured scorner of the masses. It was a stupendous triumph for accident and atmosphere to have succeeded in fitting Doctor Jim to his inherited environment of Second Westings. His Congregationalism was a thing that might conceivably be changed to meet changed conditions; while his Toryism was bred in the bone. With Mistress Mehitable, on the other hand, her Congregationalism was deep-rooted, a matter of conscience. It was by conscience, too, no less than by blood, that she was an aristocrat. She was a royalist, a Tory, no less unquestioning than Doctor Jim, but this by a chance election of that strenuous conscience which, by a different chance twist, would have made her an equally sincere Whig.
When Doctor Jim had sung till Doctor John told him he was getting hoarse and spoiling his voice, Barbara, in a burst of daring, started up a wild plantation song, patting her accompaniment. To Mistress Mehitable, as to Robert, this was an undreamed novelty, and their eyes opened wide in wonder. At first they thought it barbarous, but in a few minutes the piquing rhythms and irresponsible cadences caught them, and they listened in rapture. Barbara's store of these songs was a rich one, and she had perfected the rendering in many a secret performance to the audience of Doctor John and Doctor Jim. When she was quite sure of the effect she was producing, she sprang to her feet, flung her hair loose by a quick movement of both hands, and began to dance as she sang. And now, to the ever-growing amazement of Mistress Mehitable, Doctor Jim took up the patting, while Doctor John, seating himself at the harpsichord, began a strange staccato picking of the keys. Then Barbara stopped singing, and gave herself up wholly to the dance. She danced with arms and hands and head and feet, and every slender curve of her young body. She moved like flames. Her eyes and lips and teeth were a radiance through the live, streaming darknesses of her hair. Light, swift, unerring, ecstatic, it was like the most impassioned of bird-songs translated into terms of pure motion. Doctor John played faster and faster his wild, monotonous melody. Doctor Jim patted harder and harder. Barbara's dance grew madder and stranger, till at last, with a little breathless cry that was half a sob, she stopped, darted across the room, flung herself down, and buried her dishevelled head in Mistress Mehitable's lap.
On ordinary occasions Mistress Mehitable would have felt inclined to hold that anything so extraordinary, so utterly outside the range of all conceptions, and at the same time so very beautiful, must be wrong. Now, however, she was under the spell of Barbara and under the spell of the whole situation. "I cannot see any possible harm in it!" she said to herself. And to Barbara she said, tenderly and deftly arranging the disordered locks:
"Most beautiful, and most singular, dear. I suppose that is your dance of 'Maryland Memories,' is it not? It seems to me not only amazingly beautiful, but as if it might be the most wholesome and desirable of exercises."
Barbara gurgled a gasping laugh from the depths of Mistress Mehitable's taffeta. It had never occurred to her that these mad negro dances, in which she found expression for so much in herself which she did not understand, could be regarded in the light of exercise. But she was glad indeed if they could be so regarded by Aunt Hitty.
"Oh, yes, honey," she agreed, in haste. "I'm sure it's wholesome; and I know it's desirable,—isn't it?"
This appeal was to every one, but it was Robert, at last awaking from his rapture and finding breath, who answered: