willow leaf, a high-bridged nose and a mouth—at present—a marvel of contempt. Her slight figure was in a black dress; she was without rings or ornamental gold.
"That talking trash gave me a cold misery," the colored woman admitted. She glanced at the girl and moved a bowl of salad nearer Elim Meikeljohn. "Miss Rosemary," she begged, "take something, my heart."
Rosemary Roselle answered with a slow shudder; she slipped forward, with her face buried in her arms on the table. Elim regarded her with profound mingled emotions. In the fantastic past, when he had created her from the studied essays, he had thought of her—censoriously—as gay. Perhaps she danced! He wondered momentarily where the men were Indy had spoken of as present; then he realized that they had been but a precautionary figment of Indy's imagination; the girl, except for the woman with the tender brown hand caressing her shoulder, was alone in the house.
He sat with chin on breast gazing with serious speculation at the crumpled figure opposite him. Indy, corroborating his surmise, said to the girl:
"I can't make out at all why your papa don't come back. He said yesterday when he left he wouldn't be hardly an hour."
"Something dreadful has happened," Rosemary Roselle insisted, raising a hopeless face. "Indy, do you suppose he's dead like McCall and—and"
"Mr. Roselle he ain't dead," the woman responded stoutly; "he's just had to keep low trash from stealing all his tobacco."
"He could easily be found," Elim put in; "I could
