"Theah! theah!" comforted her mother, lifting up her face and kissing it. "It's not so fah but you can come back again. The same road comes that goes, deah one. Theah! Theah!"
"Miss Celia," cried a reproachful voice from the door. "Is you gwine away, chile, widout tellin' youah black Mammy good-by?"
Celia unclasped her mother's arms, fell upon the bosom of her black Mammy and wept anew.
"De Lawd be wid you, chile," cooed the voice of the negress, musical with tenderness, "an' bring you back home safe an' soun' in His own time."
The stage rolled up with clash and clatter and flap of curtain.
It stopped at the gate. There ensued the rush of departure, the driver, after hoisting the baggage of his one passenger thereto, looking stolidly down on the heartbreak from the height of his perch, his long whip poised in midair.
Celia's friends swarmed about her. They kissed her. They essayed to comfort her. They thrust upon her gifts of fruit and flowers and dainties for her lunch.
They bore her wraps out to the cumbersome vehicle which was to convey her to Lexington, the nearest town which at that time boasted of a railroad. They placed her comfortably, turning again and again to give her another kiss and to bid her good-by and God-speed.
It was as if her heartstrings wrenched asunder at the jerk of the wheels that started the huge stage onward.
"Good-by, good-by!" she cried out, her pale face at the window.