Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/204

 the pretty figure with its short blue skirt and low white bodice sitting so near him. The grandmother, who was somewhat deaf, persisted in considering Margaret as a "missionary." She showed her her Bible and hymn-book, holding the latter upside down in perfect unconsciousness.

"What an Eve one could model from that girl in her savage beauty!" said Margaret to Philip. "She has a perfection of form and freshness of face that seem to bring back the Woman of the first Eden."

"And yet she is as finished an actress as the most modern Eve. Would you have guessed that that woman was the wife of my boy Hero, and that she had not seen him until this moment for six weeks past? That is her idea of etiquette."

"They are a curious people and very interesting," said Margaret. "I think it wonderful that in little more than a century they should have arrived at so high a degree of civilization as is seen among the more educated ones to-day. In the natural course of events, the social conditions they now live in would not have been arrived at in a thousand years and more."

"Margaret," said Mrs. Harden under her breath, "you are talking about things of which you are totally ignorant. They are hopelessly