“Yes,” replied the child. Very gravely she extended a hand. “I am proud to see you,” she said.
Miss Scarborough took the small hand.
“You know we are of one blood, Emily,” she said; “may I offer you the salute of kinship?” She brushed the child’s delicate cheek with her lips.
The little girl as calmly returned the salute, and then stepped back.
“I was glad when I heared you was coming,” she said.
“Why?”
“Well, I craved to see a ginuwine Scarborough, I have heared maw tell such a sight about them.”
“I hope you did not expect so much that you are sadly disappointed in me?” Although Miss Scarborough smiled, there was a tone of real anxiety in her voice.
Emily’s gaze swept her slowly, critically, for some seconds.
“I was powerful afeared you wouldn’t be a pretty woman,” she said at last; “but you are. I like your looks.” She sighed, as though from relief, then made a more minute appraisement. “I like them big black eyes,” she said; “I like that tender skin. I like that quare hair; it favors the Scarborough spoons. I allow,” she summed up solemnly, judicially, “that you are the pine-blank prettiest woman ever I seed.”