“I tole you I wus dead nigh six weeks. My wife, she’d marri’d ag’in, thank Gord, whilst I wus dead!”
The Ghost, Cassandra
By J. Madison Sheppard
The servants—overhearing the eager, excited footman’s message to the young mistress—had gathered hurriedly upon the rear porch to inspect the new arrival; cook, kitchen-maid, butler, flanked on one side by the parlor-maids, and on the other by a small errand boy, who peeped in open-mouthed wonder from beneath the elbow of the waiting footman.
The new arrival was a beautiful white mare. She had quickly thrown her head upward, and now stood at gaze—regarding them. Alert, ardent, with a slight distinguishable tremor of expectancy, but no trace of fear in either posture or regard—merely bright inquiry.
“She was the incarnation of the Arab of romance;” lithe, delicately tapering limbs, satin skin shimmering in the sunlight, pink nostrils flaring wide from her quick breath, eyes glowing with intelligence, and, withal, a thing of beauty, standing, as it were, transfixed in passionate silence.
When the mistress of the house at last came down the great wide stairway, the group fell back forming a semi-circle, leaving her face to face with the bright object of interest.
“So that is the horse,” she said, in faint astonishment, which, however, grew gradually into an expression of pure admiration and wonder; for the beauty she beheld was little short of marvelous.
She turned suddenly to the servants with a perplexed gesture. “Is the brougham at the door?” she asked. The footman signified that it was. “Tell Thomas to come here.” The coachman a moment later had fixed his eyes upon the newcomer that had attracted the group. At length, his decorous gravity gave way to a smile of distinct pleasure, expressive of the praise that seemed to tremble upon his lips; but, he remained silent, a martyr to his training, his very features admirably correct.