Days went by, as days will in any state of affairs, with
just such faultless weather as August engenders amid the cool hills of the
old Cherokee country; and Phyllis noted, by an indirect attention to what
she had never before been interested in, that Colonel Sommerton was growing
strangely confidential and familiar with Barnaby. She had a distinct but
remote impression that her father had hitherto never, at least never
openly, shown such irenic solicitude in that direction, and she knew that
his sudden peace-making with the old negro meant ill to her lover. She
pondered the matter with such discrimination and logic as her clever little
brain could compass; and at last she one evening called Barnaby to come
into the garden with his banjo.
The sun was down, and the half-grown moon swung yellow and clear against
the violet arch of mid-heaven. Through the sheen a softened outline of the
town wavered fantastically.
Phyllis sat on a great fragment of limestone, which, embossed with curious
fossils, formed the immovable centre-piece of the garden.
Barnaby, at a respectful distance, crumpled herself satyr-like on the
ground, with his banjo across his knee, and gazed expectantly aslant at the
girl's sweet face.
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