In the buggy was seated a lady, and beside her a little boy,
dressed in a child's sailor suit and a straw hat. The lady, with a
wistful expression, was looking toward the party grouped in the open
window.
Mrs. Carteret, chancing to lower her eyes for an instant, caught the
other woman's look directed toward her and her child. With a glance of
cold aversion she turned away from the window.
Old Mammy Jane had observed this movement, and had divined the reason
for it. She stood beside Clara, watching the retreating buggy.
"Uhhuh!" she said to herself, "it's huh sister Janet! She ma'ied a
doctuh, an' all dat, an' she lives in a big house, an' she's be'n roun'
de worl' an de Lawd knows where e'se: but Mis' 'Livy don' like de sight
er her, an' never will, ez long ez de sun rises an' sets. Dey ce't'nly
does favor one anudder,--anybody mought 'low dey wuz twins, ef dey didn'
know better. Well, well! Fo'ty yeahs ago who'd 'a' ever expected ter
see a nigger gal ridin' in her own buggy? My, my! but I don' know,--I
don' know! It don' look right, an' it ain' gwine ter las'!--you can't
make me b'lieve!"
Meantime Janet, stung by Mrs. Carteret's look,--the nearest approach she
had ever made to a recognition of her sister's existence,--had turned
away with hardening face. She had struck her pony sharply with the whip,
much to the gentle creature's surprise, when the little boy, who was
still looking back, caught his mother's sleeve and exclaimed
excitedly:--
"Look, look, mamma! The baby,--the baby!"
Janet turned instantly, and with a mother's instinct gave an involuntary
cry of alarm.
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