Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/28

MY LADY OF THE SOUTH I lifted myself cautiously, peering out from behind the concealing boxes, in order that I might thus assure myself she was really white. The negro stood with his back toward me, a short, stockily built fellow, but bent somewhat by years and hard toil in the fields, his wool showing a dingy gray beneath the brim of his hat. By every outward token he was an old-time slave, to whom freedom would possess no vital meaning.

Just beyond his broad, bent shoulders appeared the features of a young girl, a most piquant face, marked now by trouble and perplexity, yet clearly reflecting a nature in which all the joy of life naturally predominated. I caught merely a glimpse, for I dared not brave disclosure, yet so deeply did that single glance impress me that, had I never been again privileged to see her, I could not have entirely effaced the memory. Scarcely more than eighteen years of age, rather slight of figure, still retaining the form of girlhood, less than medium height, standing firmly erect, every movement displaying unconscious grace and vigor, her face bright with intelligence, animated by every passing emotion, her cheeks flushed with health, her hair of darkest brown, fluffed carelessly back from off the low, broad forehead, her eyes the deepest unfathomable gray-blue, oddly shadowed by long lashes densely black, her lips full, red, and arched, speaking softly the pleasant idiom of the Southland. For a single moment she appeared to me a vision, fulfilling my dreams of young womanhood; then I awoke to the reality—that in fair rounded flesh and pure red blood, she stood there, an [ 20 ]