The mild winter of the Delta region wore itself gradually away, and now again the sun was high in the mid-arc of the sky, glowing so warm that the earth, rich and teeming, seemed once more to quiver under its ardor. The sloth of ease and comfort was in the air. The big bees droned among the flowers at the lattice, and out in the glaring sunlight the lusty cocks led their bands betimes, crowing each his loud defiance. In the pastures, under the wide-armed oaks, the cattle and horses stood dozing. Life on the old plantation seemed, after all, to have set on again much in its former quiet channels. If within the year there had been insubordination, violence, death hereabout, the scene no longer showed it. The Delta, less than a quarter white, more than three-quarters black, was once more at rest, and waiting. This was the scene over which Miss Lady looked out one day as she sat in a big rocking-chair in the shade, in a favorite spot of the wide gallery, feeling dreamily, if not definitely, the spirit of the idle landscape which lay shimmering in the sun. Her gaze gained directness and comprehension at last. This, thought Miss Lady, was the world! It was all the world for her. This, so far as she could see, was to be her fate--to sit and look out over the wide reaches of the cotton fields, to hear the negroes sing their melodies, to watch the lazy life of an inland farm. This was to be the boundary of her world, this white and black rim of the forest hedging all about. This lattice was to shut in her life for ever. She might meet no white woman but her mother, no white man. Things were not quite clear to Miss Lady's mind to-day. She sank back in the chair, and all the world again seemed vague, confused, shimmering, like this scene over which she gazed. She sighed, her foot tapping at the gallery floor. Sometimes it seemed to Miss Lady that she must break out into cries of impatience, that she must fly, that she must indeed seek out a wider world. What was that world, she wondered, the world out there beyond the rim of the ancient forest that hedged her in? What did it hold for a girl? Was there life in it? Was there love in it? Was there answer in it? The old bear-dog, Hec, came around the corner of the house from his napping in the shade, and sat looking up in adoration at his divinity, inquiring mutely whether that divinity would permit a common warrior like himself to come and kiss her hand. She saw him finally and extended one hand idly; at which Hec dropped his ears, wagged his tail uncertainly, and came on slowly up the stair. He nozzled his head tentatively against her knee; and so, receiving sanction, went into delighted waggings, licking tenderly the soft white hand which stroked his head. "Oh, Hec, dear old Hec," said Miss Lady, "I am _so_ lonesome!" And Hec, understanding vaguely that all was not quite well with his divinity, uplifted his voice in deep regret. "I am so _lonesome,_" repeated Miss Lady, softly, to herself.