Lauretta was still a pretty woman, and since her first stark appearance at the spend-the-day party, she had modified the severity of her appearance, dressing her hair in a softer style and using some of her subtler artifices to improve her looks without giving evidence of altering the work of God’s hand. But her appeal to Bruce—and in spite of his preoccupation with weather and harvesting, he found that Lauretta was often in his thoughts—was not limited to mechanical aids. She had mastered the tricks of sitting and walking in modest but seductive ways, of listening, of speaking—above all, speaking with her eyes—in a manner that had caught and held the attention of more worldly men than Bruce Davis.

He began to sprinkle his mealtime conversation with references to her that he considered casual, but that Edna noted, and that caused even the unsuspicious Doreen to smile at James in a mysterious way. These references became more frequent and more extravagant, although they were received with neither comment nor encouragement. Edna kept a discreet silence, considering her son’s fancy to be a passing one. But at a certain noon dinner he made bold to say, “Though she be past her youth, yet I declare she is all the better for it. She would make a fine wife for any man!”

Adam and James and Doreen were embarrassed to hear their father reveal his inclination so badly and began to speak quickly among themselves. Adam was to go the day after tomorrow to Savannah on business of the plantation. Like his Uncle Bonard before him, he had little or nothing to do directly with the land but was happy to make himself useful in town and city matters having to do with the plantation.

It was the middle of September. The harvest was mostly in, although Bruce and James, as well as Edna and Doreen, still found many things to do and would stay busy from now until Adam’s wedding a month hence. So they talked of Savannah, Doreen reminding Adam of two or three personal commissions he had offered to execute for her there. After a little while, the brothers and their sister excused themselves from the table, leaving Edna and Bruce alone.

They had always been comfortable together, but now Bruce found his mother staring at him balefully. “Whatever is the matter?” he asked.

“Do you mean what you said about that woman?”

He affected perplexity. “Miss Lauretta?”

She nodded shortly. “If she were any other than Sarah Kendrick’s sister, I would not sit in the same room with her.”

“Mama, you surprise me!”

“And you surprise me!”

“But—my son is marrying her daughter.”

“I consider Rachel to be Sarah’s child. She has brought her up and is responsible for making her the dear girl she is to all of us. I shall welcome her with joy.”

“Then you must see you cannot cut her mother.”