Page:By Sanction of Law.pdf/208

 "Oh, don't let's talk about that now. I'm not home yet, Daddy.—Wait till we get home."

"As serious as that, is it?" Colonel Lauriston remarked shrewdly.

His daughter made no comment, becoming suddenly pensive as she thought of Bennet and her mind raced back to him. Conversation for the remainder of the trip was spasmodic, Colonel Lauriston seemingly being content to have his daughter again under his eye and she absorbed in her dreams. In her reverie she retraced the events of the past year back to her leaving home. At this point she turned suddenly to her father.

"Oh, Daddy, what's become of Aunt Sally Gorton. Is she still here?"

"Yes,—still here." A spasm of pain at the reminder flitted across his face.

"That was awful, Daddy—the curse she placed on you, I mean."

"I thought you'd forget that superstition up North, My Girl, Only a superstition—only a superstition," he repeated.

"Yes, Daddy, but she whipped you.—Ugh!" she shivered. "I can feel the pain of it yet."

"The whim of an old woman, Lida.—The whim of an old woman," he repeated.

The carriage by this time had rounded a curve in the road disclosing to view a wide expanse of cotton fields, with here and there patches of woods. Set back at the edges of the woods at varying distances apart were houses