Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/144

 coloured neck, and her even teeth, like so many pearls. And those small, supple, berry-stained hands. "You are a little baggage, Fawnie," he had said to her, in his moment of chagrin. "You mean I act like I was white," she had answered.

He went slowly from his room to the passage and took his straw hat from the rack. He whistled for a half-grown Irish terrier pup that Mr. Jerrold had given him, but the puppy did not come. He went to the kitchen to look for him, fearing that Phœbe was feeding him a second supper.

As he expected, the puppy was there, his sides drawn together, his legs apart, as he wolfed the greasy contents of a bowl. "Phœbe! Phœbe!" expostulated Derek, "How often have I told you not to let that little brute gorge himself!"

"I can't help it," said Phœbe, "the creature gives me no peace till I do."

There was a chuckling sound at the door and Derek saw the round faces of Beulah and Alma pressed against the screen.

"Phœbe," said Beulah, grinning, "kin I have a point of milk?"

"Oh," cried Phœbe, impatiently, "you and your points of milk! The moment you arrive, I'm running to the milk jug, or the paraffin jar, or the butter crock. Where's your money?" Beulah showed a few blackened coppers, and Phœbe went to the cellar, still scolding.

Beulah cautiously opened the door and put her rough black head inside. "Say," she whispered, "my Maw wants to see you—up at the shack—I was to say, come now."

"What does she want me for? Tell her to come here if she wants to see me."

"She don' want the old woman and Phœbe to hear. She says there'll be a lot of trouble if you don' come."