She did not hear the door open, and started as Joseph touched her, saying, 'Why, Theo, my dearest girl, what is the matter?'

He raised her, holding her quivering body close to him.

'What in the world has happened?' he insisted.

She could not tell him that she was lonely and frightened, that she longed bitterly for her father, but she was grateful for the comfort of his arms about her. Her head fell against his breast, her sobs quieted.

Finding that she would not speak beyond a murmur of 'headache,' he kissed her and dismissed the matter as female vagary.

'The family are pleased with you,' he said presently, and went to the mirror to rearrange his stock. 'They find you pretty. My father and brothers agree that they have never seen so fine a pair of dark eyes, and Mrs. Huger—Aunt Allston that was, of the double "1" branch—says you are a sweet creature.'

Theo wiped her eyes on her cambric handkerchief. 'I'm glad of that. She watched him with a certain mournful amusement as he rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands in the Wedgwood basin. He whistled tunelessly and dried his hands with a flourish. She realized that he was pleased with himself and her. He was, in fact, in a very good humor, had enjoyed playing the traveled man of the world before his brothers, had been delighted to hear that his overseer, Mr. Smith, at the Oaks saw prospects of a bumper rice crop, and that seven nigger wenches at the plantation had produced healthy brats—fertile niggers were mighty good assets.

Yet deeper and more important than these, more important even than Theo's initial success with his family, lay a simple primitive emotion. He was glad to be home. The Waccamaw Neck was dear to him. He had been born there, had romped and hunted over every foot of it. He knew each one of the thirty plantations strung in a row down the river like green beads on a brown silk cord—Brookgreen, Turkey Hill, True Blue, Hagley, Forlorn Hope, Rose Hill—their very names pleased him, and every one was connected with Alstons or Allstons. And, he thought complacently, his own place, the Oaks, was the original one; from the Oaks both branches had spread like creepers along the banks of the Waccamaw.

Tomorrow, or maybe the day after, he would ride up to the Oaks and inspect the young rice, at the same time deciding what must be done to make his house habitable. No hurry for that, however. They could stay at Clifton indefinitely.

It suddenly occurred to him that Theo was exceedingly quiet. He looked around to see her sitting dejectedly on the edge of the bed, staring out the window into the murmurous Carolina spring night.