The kettle boiled. "Effen I called you a skele
tum," Mandy said as she placed a cup and saucer on a small napkined tray, "my min' was on dat-ar Daisy. You ain' got no bones, Miss Becky. But Daisy, she's got a neck like a picked tukkey, and her shoulder-blades stan' out like wings."
III
Becky went to the train with her aunt. George Dalton drove Madge down and passed the old surrey on the way.
Later Madge met Mrs. Beaufort and Becky on the station platform, and it was when Dalton settled her in her chair in the train that she said, "She's a darling. Keep her on a pedestal, Georgie——"
"You're a good sport," he told her; "you know you'd hate it if I did."
"I shouldn't. I'd like to think of you on your knees——"
It was time for him to leave her. She gave him her hand. "Until we meet again, Georgie."
Her eyes were cool and smiling. Yet later as she looked out on the flying hills, there was trouble in them. There had been a time when Dalton had seemed to square with her girlish dreams.
And now, there was no one to warn this other girl with dreams in her eyes. George was not a vulture, he was simply a marauding bee——!