Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/82

 was suspended by a rusty iron chain. A woman with a red handkerchief drawn over her head was superintending the cooking. She was no longer young, but showed traces of beauty in the outlines of her face and figure. She was of a Spanish type; but that her blood was not unmixed with that of an inferior race was evident from the too deep olive of the skin and the closely curling hair. A man sat near her on the counter engaged in sharpening a knife on a small grindstone. It was a harmless knife, fit only for the paring of vegetables; but in the hands of the red-shirted dago it seemed to lose its innocent character, his fierce dark face was so intent upon his work, his strong bare arm looked as if it could wield a more dangerous blade so effectively. The two were listening to a third person, who completed the group, a woman who might have been sister or daughter to her of the red handkerchief, judging from her profile. In a moment she turned to the man, who was delicately testing the blade of his knife upon his fingers; and as she moved toward him, the full light, falling upon her, revealed a white, eager face, framed in heavy black hair and marked by straight dark eyebrows. The resemblance had vanished; there could be no kinship surely between this tall young woman, with her white jewelled hands and simple mourning robe of