“Then you have another think coming,” said his kinswoman, merrily. “That simplicity stuff is just the smoke screen he throws up so he can size us up from behind it!” She took his arm and led him to the dining room where her guests were waiting. “We’ll matchmake, you and I, won’t we? We’ll wind ’em round our fingers!” “You little rascal,” he chuckled, warming more and more as he saw his Lady-bird and his young partner standing together in a gentle silence before the great fireplace, “we will, by the eternal!” It was three days later that Glen took matters into her own hands and brought Gloriana-Virginia home to her own house. “Hit ain’t a mite o’ use,” her aunt commented sourly. “Jes’ let that young-un get down, and hit’s no telling when we’ll get her up agin; jes’ like a cow. Long’s she keep’s going, she’s all right.” “M’liss’! ‘All right!’ How can you say that? She’s tired to _death_!” “That young-un was borned tired, I reckon. Never did have no spunk. Favored her maw and her maw’s folks.” Miss Tolliver treated herself liberally to snuff and allowed that it was rather hard for her to be deprived of her niece’s earnings in order that she might gallivant around and enjoy herself. “I’ll pay you whatever Glory would earn while she’s with us,” said Glen, hotly. “And you know perfectly well she’s not going to gallivant; she’s going to stay in bed late every day, and lie in the hammock, and rest!” “Hit ain’t in reason that she won’t be plumb spi’lt,” the aunt repeated her grievance. “I ’low I’ll have to train her right sharp when she kindly comes home to her own kin again!” Miss Ada regarded the spectacle of a Tolliver in the tiny guest chamber without enthusiasm, but the child was so meek, so humble, so cringingly grateful that she was not able to hold out against her for very long, and treated her with a gentle condescension which Glory received adoringly, and black Phemie, after a sniff or two at “po’ white trash in er quality baid,” settled comfortably to the task of fattening her, and took a professional pride in the process. M’liss’ kept severely aloof, while Henry Clay Bean and pap sneaked in almost every day to see Glory, but the real thrill was the evening when Phemie left the supper dishes to answer the doorbell and came padding upstairs with a rather shocked expression, a card held daintily between a damp thumb and forefinger. “Mist’ Peter Parker to call on Mis’ Glo’anna-Virginny Tollivah!” Glen and Miss Ada were sitting in the tiny guest room, Glen with the inevitable fairy-tale book, and the teacher with her needlework, and the girl flushed hotly. “Phemie, tell the gentleman that Glory has gone to bed.” There was a wail from the house guest. “Oh, Glen, please, _pretty_ please, lemme see him! I jes’ been pintly honin’ to see him, Glen! Seems like he was gone to Beulah-land for a solid month and I was plumb scared I wouldn’t never see him no mo’!” “But, Glory, dear, the doctor said you were to go to sleep early!”