Mary had lighted his room and handed him the lamp; "sweet sleep and pleasant dreams," she had said, gravely bowing to him as she withdrew—a family custom, as he had afterward learned. But the sleep was not sweet nor the dreams pleasant. Excited and disturbed he dozed away the hours and was glad when the plantation bell rang its early summons. He dressed and made his way to the veranda, whence he wandered over the flower garden, intercepting the colonel, who was about to take his morning look about. Courteously leaving his horse at the gate that gentleman went on foot with him. It was Edward's first experience on a plantation and he viewed with lively interest the beginning of the day's labor. Cotton was opening and numbers of negroes, old and young, were assembling with baskets and sacks or moving out with a show of industry, for, as it was explained to him, it is easy to get them early started in cotton-picking time, as the work is done by the hundred pounds and the morning dew counts for a great deal. "Many people deduct for that," said Montjoy, "but I prefer not to. Lazy and trifling as he is, the negro is but poorly paid."

"But," said Edward, laughing, "you do not sell the dew, I suppose?"

"No. Generally it evaporates, but if it does not the warehouse deducts for it."

"I noticed at one place on the way south that the people were using wheel implements, do you not find them profitable?" The colonel pointed to a shed under which were a number of cultivators, revolving plows, mowing machines and a dirt turner. "I do not, the negro cannot keep awake on the cultivator and the points get into the furrows and so throw out the cotton and corn that they were supposed to cultivate. Somehow they never could learn to use the levers at the right place, with the revolving plow, and they wear its axle off. They did no better with the mower; they seemed to have an idea that it would cut anything from blades of grass up to a pine stump, and it wouldn't."

"The disk harrow," he continued laughingly, "was broken in a curious way. I sent a hand out to harrow in some peas. He rode along all right to the field and then deliberately wedged the disks to keep them from revolving, not understanding the principle. I sometimes think that they are a little jealous of these machines and do not want them to work well."

"You seem to have a great many old negroes."

"Too many; too many," he said, sadly; "but what can be done? These people have been with me all my life and I can't turn them adrift in their old age. And the men seem bent upon keeping married," he added, good-naturedly. "When the old wives die they get new and young ones, and then comes extravagant living again."

"And you have them all to support?"

"Of course. The men do a little chopping and cotton-picking, but not enough to pay for the living of themselves and families. What is it, Nancy?"

"Pa says please send him some meal and meat. He ain't had er mouthful in four days." The speaker was a little negro girl. "Go, see your young mistress. That is a specimen," said the old gentleman, half-laughing, half-frowning. "Four days! He would have been dead the second! Our system does not suit the new order of things. It seems to me the main trouble is in the currency. Our values have all been upset by legislation. Silver ought never have been demonetized; it was fatal, sir. And then the tariff."

"Is not overproduction a factor, Colonel? I read that your last crops of cotton were enormous."

"Possibly so, but the world has to have cotton, and an organization would make it buy at our own prices. There are enormous variations, of course, we can't figure in advance, and whenever a low price rules, the country is broke. The result is the loan associations and cotton factors are about to own us."

The two men returned to find Mary with the pigeons upon her shoulders and a flock of poultry begging at her feet.

"You are going with me to the general's," he said, pleadingly, as he stood by her. She shook her head.

"I suppose not this time; mamma needs me." But at the breakfast table, when he renewed the subject, that lady from her little side table said promptly: "Yes." Mary needed the exercise and diversion, and then there was a little mending to be done for the old general. He always saved it for her. It was his whim.

So they started in Edward's buggy, riding in silence until he said abruptly:

"I am persevering, Miss Montjoy, as you will some day find out, and I am counting upon your help."

"In what?" She was puzzled by his manner.

"In getting Moreau in Paris to look into the little mamma's eyes." She reflected a moment.

"But Dr. Campbell is coming."

"It is through him I going to accomplish my purpose; he must send her to Paris."

"But," she said, sadly, "we can't afford it. Norton could arrange it, but papa would not be willing to incur such a debt for him."

"His son—her son!" Edward showed his surprise very plainly.

"You do not understand. Norton has a family; neither papa nor mamma would borrow from him, although he would be glad to do anything in the world he could. And there is Annie——" she stopped. Edward saw the difficulty.

"Would your father accept a loan from me?" She flushed painfully.

"I think not, Mr. Morgan. He could hardly borrow money of his guest."

"But I will not be his guest, and it will be a simple business transaction. Will you help me?" She was silent.

"It is very hard, very hard," she said, and tears stood in her eyes. "Hard to have mamma's chances hang upon such a necessity."

"Supposing I go to your father and say: 'This thing is necessary and must be done. I have money to invest at 5 per cent. and am going to Paris. If you will secure me with a mortgage upon this place for the necessary amount I will pay all expenses and take charge of your wife and daughter.' Would it offend him?"

"He could not be offended by such generosity, but it would distress him—the necessity."

"That should not count in the matter," he said, gravely. "He is already distressed. And what is all this to a woman's eyesight?"

"How am I to help?" she asked after a while.

"The objection will be chiefly upon your account, I am afraid," he said, after reflection. "You will have to waive everything and second my efforts. That will settle it." She did not promise, but seemed lost in thought. When she spoke again it was upon other things.

"Ah, truant!" cried the general, seeing her ascending the steps and coming forward, "here you are at last. How are you, Morgan? Sit down, both of you. Mary," he said, looking at her sternly, "if you neglect me this way again I shall go off and marry a grass widow. Do you hear me, miss? Look at this collar." He pointed dramatically to the offending article; one of the Byronic affairs, to which the old south clings affectionately, and which as affectionately clings to the garment it is supposed to adorn, since it is a part of it. "I have buttoned that not less than a dozen times to-day." She laughed and, going in, presently returned with thread and needle and sitting upon his knee restored the buttonhole to its proper size. Then she surveyed him a moment.

"Why haven't you been over to see us?"

"Because——"

"You will have to give the grass widow a better excuse than that. 'Tis a woman's answer. But here is Mr. Morgan, come to see if he can catch the tune your waterfall plays—if you have no objection." Edward explained the situation.

"Go with him, Mary. I think the waterfall plays a better tune to a man when there is a pretty girl around." She playfully stopped his mouth and then darted into the house.

"General," said Edward, earnestly, "I have not written to you. I preferred to come in person to express anew my thanks and appreciation of your kindness in my recent trial. The time may come—"

"Nonsense, my boy; we take these things for granted here in the south. If you are indebted to anybody it is to the messenger who brought me the news of your predicament, put me on horseback and sent me hurrying off in the night to town for the first time in twenty years."

"And who could have done that?" Edward asked, overwhelmed with emotion. "From whom?"

"From nobody. She summed up the situation, got behind the little mare and came over here in the night. Morgan, that is the rarest girl in Georgia. Take care, sir; take care, sir." He was getting himself indignant over some contingency when the object of his eulogium appeared.

"Now, General, you are telling tales on me."

"Am I? Ask Morgan. I'd swear on a stack of Bibles as high as yonder pine I have not mentioned your name."

"Well, it is a wonder. Come on, Mr. Morgan."

The old man watched them as they picked their way through the hedge and concluded his interrupted remark: "If you break that loyal heart—if you bring a tear to those brown eyes, you will meet a different man from Royson." But he drove the thought away while he looked affectionately after the pair.

Down came the little stream, with an emphasis and noise disproportioned to its size, the cause being, as Edward guessed, the distance of the fall and the fact that the rock on which it struck was not a solid foundation, but rested above a cavity. Mary waited while he listened, turning away to pluck a flower and to catch in the falling mist the colors of the rainbow. But as Edward stood, over him came a flood of thoughts; for the air was full of a weird melody, the overtone of one great chord that thrilled him to the heart. As in a dream he saw her standing there, the blue skies and towering trees above her, a bit of light in a desert of solitude. Near, but separated from him by an infinite gulf. "Forever! Forever!" all else was blotted out.

She saw on his face the white desperation she had noticed once before.

"You have found it," she said. "What is the tone?"

"Despair," he answered, sadly. "It can mean nothing else."

"And yet," she said, a new thought animating her mobile face, as she pointed into the mist above, "over it hangs the rainbow."