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 “But, Peter—”

Peter drew a chair beside her in a serious argumentative mood.

“Yes I think we ought to get married at once. No reason why we shouldn't get it over with—Why, what's the matter?”

“So soon after your mother's death, Peter?”

“It's to get away from Hooker's Bend, Cissie—to get you away. I don't like for you to stay here. It's all so—” he broke off, not caring to open the disagreeable subject.

The girl sat staring down at some fagots smoldering on the hearth. At that moment they broke into flame and illuminated her sad face.

“You'll go, won't you?” asked Peter at last, with a faint uncertainty.

The girl looked up.

“Oh—I—I'd be glad to, Peter,”—she gave a little shiver. “Ugh! this Niggertown is a—a terrible place!”

Peter leaned over, took one of her hands, and patted it.

“Then we'll go,” he said soothingly. “It's decided—tomorrow. And we'll have a perfectly lovely wedding trip,” he planned cheerfully, to draw her mind from her mood. “On the car going North I'll get a whole drawing-room. I've always wanted a drawing-room, and you'll be my excuse. We'll sit and watch the fields and woods and cities slip past us, and know,