"Good-by," they answered, and Mansy Storm, running alongside, said to her:
"You give my love to Seth, Celia. Don't you fo'get."
Then breathlessly as the stage moved faster:
"If evah the Good Lawd made a man a mighty little lowah than the angels," she added, "that man's Seth."
The old stage rumbled along the broad white Lexington pike, past houses of other friends, who stood at gates to wave her farewell.
It rumbled past little front yards abloom with flowers, back of which white cottages blinked sleepily, one eye of a shuttered window open, one shut, past big stone gates which gave upon mansions of more grandeur, past smaller farms, until at length it drew up at the tollgate.
Here a girl with hair of sunshine, coming out, untied the pole and raised it slowly.
"You goin' away, Miss Celia?" she asked in her soft Southern brogue, tuneful as the ripple of water. "I heah sumbody say you was goin' away."
Celia smothered a sob.
"Yes," she answered, "I am goin' away."