With one glance his keen eyes took in the situation in
the dim room in which the two old wayfarers lay prepared for the
morning journey, and what Miss Lavinia's stately and proper greeting
would have been to him none of them ever knew, for with a couple of
strides he was over by the bed at Rose Mary's side and had taken the
stern old lady into his strong arms and landed a kiss on the ruffle of
white nightcap just over her left ear.
"No leaving the Briars this season, Miss Lavinia," he said in a
laughing, choking voice as he bent across and extracted one of little
Miss Amandy's hands from the tight bunch she had curled herself into
under the edge of her pillow and bestowed a squeeze thereon. "It's all
fixed up over at Boliver this afternoon. There's worse than oil on the
place--and it's all yours now for keeps." With Rose Mary in his arms
Everett had entirely forgotten to announce to her such a minor fact as
the saving of her lands and estate, but to the two little old ladies
his sympathy had made him give the words of reprieve with his first
free breath. The bundles on the floor and the old trunk had smote his
heart with a fierce pain that the impulsive warmth of his greeting
and the telling of his rescue could only partly ease.
"The news only reached me day before--" he was going on to explain
when, candle in hand, Uncle Tucker appeared in the doorway. His
long-tailed night-shirt flapped around his bare, thin old legs, and
every separate gray lock stood by itself and rampant, while his eyes
seemed deeper and more mystic than ever.
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