Louisiana

They were just getting in when an idea struck Ferrol which caused him to utter an exclamation of ecstatic relief.

"Why," he cried, "there is that house we passed! Get in quickly. We can reach there in twenty minutes."

Louisiana had her foot upon the step. She stopped short and turned to face him. She changed from red to white and from white to red again, as if with actual terror.

"There!" she exclaimed. "There!"

"Yes," he answered. "We can reach there in time to save ourselves. Is there any objection to our going, – in the last extremity?"

For a second they looked into each other's eyes, and then she turned and sprang into the carriage. She laughed aloud.

"Oh, no," she said. "Go there! It will be a nice place to stay – and the people will amuse you. Go there."

They reached the house in a quarter of an hour instead of twenty minutes. They had driven fast and kept ahead of the storm, but when they drew up before the picket fence the clouds were black and the thunder was rolling behind them.

It was Louisiana who got out first. She led the way up the path to the house and mounted the steps of the variegated porch. She did not knock at the door, which stood open, but, somewhat to Fermi's amazement, walked at once into the front room, which was plainly the room of state. Not to put too fine a point upon it, it was a hideous room.

The ceiling was so low that Ferrol felt as if he must knock his head against it; it was papered – ceiling and all – with paper of an unwholesome yellow enlivened with large blue flowers; there was a bedstead in one corner, and the walls were ornamented with colored lithographs of moon-faced houris, with round eyes and round, red cheeks, and wearing low-necked dresses, and flowers in their bosoms, and bright yellow gold necklaces. These works of art were the first things which caught Ferrol's eye, and he went slowly up to the most remarkable, and stood before it, regarding it with mingled wonderment and awe.

He turned from it after a few seconds to look at Louisiana, who stood near him, and he beheld what seemed to him a phenomenon. He had never seen her blush before as other women blush – now she was blushing, burning red from chin to brow.

"There – there is no one in this part of the house," she said. "I – I know more of these people than you do. I will go and try to find some one."

She was gone before he could interpose. Not that he would have interposed, perhaps. Somehow – without knowing why – he felt as if she did know more of the situation than he did – almost as if she were, in a manner, doing the honors for the time being.

She crossed the passage with a quick, uneven step, and made her way, as if well used to the place, into the kitchen at the back of the house.

A stout negro woman stood at a table, filling a pan with newly made biscuits. Her back was toward the door and she did not see who entered.

"Aunt Cassandry," the girl began, when the woman turned toward her.

"Who's dar?" she exclaimed. "Lor', honey, how ye skeert me! I aint no C'sandry."

The face she turned was a strange one, and it showed no sign of recognition of her visitor.

It was an odd thing that the sight of her unfamiliar face should have been a shock to Louisiana; but it was a shock. She put her hand to her side.

"Where is my – where is Mr. Rogers?" she asked. "I want to see him."

"Out on de back po'ch, honey, right now. Dar he goes!"

The girl heard him, and flew out to meet him. Her heart was throbbing hard, and she was drawing quick, short breaths.

"Father!" she cried. "Father! Don't go in the house!"

And she caught him by both shoulders and drew him round. He did not know her at first in her fanciful-simple dress and her Gainsborough hat. He was not used to that style of thing, believing that it belonged rather to the world of pictures. He stared at her. Then he broke out with an exclamation,

"Lo-rd! Louisianny!"

She kept her eyes on his face. They were feverishly bright, and her cheeks were hot. She laughed hysterically.

"Don't speak loud," she said. "There are some strange people in the house, and – and I want to tell you something."

He was a slow man, and it took him some time to grasp the fact that she was really before him in the flesh. He said, again:

"Lord, Louisianny!" adding, cheerfully, "How ye've serprised me!"

Then he took in afresh the change in her dress. There was a pile of stove-wood stacked on the porch to be ready for use, and he sat down on it to look at her.

"Why, ye've got a new dress on!" he said. "Thet thar's what made ye look sorter curis. I hardly knowed ye."

Then he remembered what she had said on first seeing him.

"Why don't ye want me to go in the house?" he asked. "What sort o' folks air they?"

"They came with me from the Springs," she answered; "and – and I want to – to play a joke on them."

She put her hands up to her burning cheeks, and stood so.

"A joke on 'em?" he repeated.

"Yes," she said, speaking very fast. "They don't know I live here, they think I came from some city, – they took the notion themselves, – and I want to let them think so until we go away from the house. It will be such a good joke."

She tried to laugh, but broke off in the middle of a harsh sound. Her father, with one copperas-colored leg crossed over the other, was chewing his tobacco slowly, after the manner of a ruminating animal, while he watched her.

"Don't you see?" she asked.

"Wa-al, no," he answered. "Not rightly."

She actually assumed a kind of spectral gayety.

"I never thought of it until I saw it was not Cassandry who was in the kitchen," she said. "The woman who is there didn't know me, and it came into my mind that – that we might play off on them," using the phraseology to which he was the most accustomed.

"Waal, we mought," he admitted, with a speculative deliberateness. "Thet's so. We mought – if thar was any use in it."

"It's only for a joke," she persisted, hurriedly.

"Thet's so," he repeated. "Thet's so."

He got up slowly and rather lumberingly from his seat and dusted the chips from his copperas-colored legs.

"Hev ye ben enjyin' yerself, Louisianny?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered. "Never better."

"Ye must hev," he returned, "or ye wouldn't be in sperrits to play jokes."

Then he changed his tone so suddenly that she was startled.