she moistened them with the tip of her pointed red tongue.
"I ain' meant a bit o harm by axin. You is my own second cousin, an' I was a waiter at you weddin. I ever did think a lot o July. I come mighty nigh marryin him mysef one time. E use to beg me so, but I'm glad now I didn' done it."
Thunder was rolling and the clothes were on the line in the yard, but Mary had forgotten them.
"You say July begged you to marry em? July? Great Gawd! Dat's de biggest lie ever was! Gal, you ain' shame to talk such a talk? You like to a popped you gizzard-string a-tryin to get July. Evybody in dis Quarter knows dat. You'd jump up an' crack you heels wid joy evy day Gawd sends, if you could a caught him. You know dat too, good as me."
The words were hardly off Mary's lips when a shadow darkened the doorway and July walked in. His eyes blinked when they fell on Cinder, as if he were trying to make her out.
"De Great I Am! Whe'd you come from, Cinder?" he asked in glad astonishment. "I didn' know you was home. How you do, gal."
His big rough shoes were covered with dust trom the road and caked with river mud that
