_Six_
The colonel spent a delightful evening in the company of his friends.
The supper was typically Southern, and the cook evidently a good one.
There was smothered chicken, light biscuit, fresh eggs, poundcake and
tea. The tablecloth and napkins were of fine linen. That they were
soft and smooth the colonel noticed, but he did not observe closely
enough to see that they had been carefully darned in many places. The
silver spoons were of fine, old-fashioned patterns, worn very thin--so
thin that even the colonel was struck by their fragility. How
charming, he thought, to prefer the simple dignity of the past to the
vulgar ostentation of a more modern time. He had once dined off a
golden dinner service, at the table of a multi-millionaire, and had
not enjoyed the meal half so much. The dining-room looked out upon the
garden and the perfume of lilac and violet stole in through the open
windows. A soft-footed, shapely, well-trained negro maid, in white
cap and apron, waited deftly upon the table; a woman of serious
countenance--so serious that the colonel wondered if she were a
present-day type of her race, and if the responsibilities of freedom
had robbed her people of their traditional light-heartedness and
gaiety.
After supper they sat out upon the piazza. The lights within were
turned down low, so that the moths and other insects might not be
attracted. Sweet odours from the garden filled the air. Through the
elms the stars, brighter than in more northern latitudes, looked out
from a sky of darker blue; so bright were they that the colonel,
looking around for the moon, was surprised to find that luminary
invisible.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59