And at night, of course, there was Joseph. Dear Joseph, she thought guiltily. She was fond of him, to be sure. She wanted to please him and to make him happy. She knew well how insecure was his hold on happiness, how easily upset he was, how liable to be hurt and to react to hurt with anger. That he needed and loved her increasingly in his own way, she could not doubt. And she needed him too, down here where he was the only link with a happy past, the only person who knew her father, and with whom she might sometimes talk of him. Only here there never seemed any opportunity to talk with him. He was away all day with the other men, and at night he was either sleepy or amorous.

She picked up a little stick and began absently to make small designs with it on the turf beside her. Sullivan's Island would be the same or worse: noisy children, wailing babies, hordes of slaves, Maria's inescapable and acid tongue, Mrs. Alston's vague complaints. And only two topics of conversation for each sex: domestic detail and family gossip for the women, race-horses and rice for the men.

She tossed the stick aside with sudden resolution. The Alstons might go to Sullivan's Island if they liked, but she had other plans. Richmond Hill was waiting: Richmond Hill and Aaron. They had exchanged many letters about it. 'Of course you must spend the summer with me,' he had written. 'You will contrive some way to bring your husband to our way of thinking, I have no doubt.'

Yes, indeed she would contrive! In the burst of joy at the prospect of liberation she thought, And I will be patient with them, and make them love me, even if they do weary me. I must learn to like this place too. After all, in its way, I suppose it is as beautiful as the North.

For the first time Theo looked about her with unprejudiced eyes. Spring had sprinkled the forest with flowers—fragrant yellow jasmine, wild violets, and the flaunting scarlet redbud. A mockingbird, high in a hickory tree, was trilling its varied music, and she listened entranced. Even the everlasting moss did not seem sinister today, for spring sunlight had flecked its grayness with vivid green.

She got up and sauntered aimlessly, enjoying the soft air and the peace, parting the hanging fronds in front of her until she saw through the interlacing branches a brown expanse of light. That was the Waccamaw down there, a great sluggish river like molasses. It was banded by the rice fields, emerald now with their waving masses of unripened rice.