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"I'll step an' see, Miss Vannie. 'At sho ain't no place fuh a nice gal lak Cissie." Tump turned on his mission, evidently intending to walk to Jonesboro and offer himself in the place of the prisoner. Peter supported Vannie back into the poor living-room, and placed her in the old rocking-chair before the empty hearth.
Dildine?" he asked in a shocked tone. "What's happened to Cissie?" Vannie began weeping again with a faint gasping and a racking of her flat chest. "It's it's O-o-oh, Peter!" She put an arm about him and began weeping against him. He soothed her, patted her shoulder, at the same time staring at the side of her head, wondering what could have dealt her this blow.
"Because " "That's because you've been to Nashville." "Oh, well " A chair was moved over a bare floor. A little later footsteps came to the entrance, the door opened, and Cissie's withered yellow mother stood before him. Vannie offered her hand and inquired after Peter's health with a stopped voice that instantly recalled his mother's death.
The door opened as soon as an inmate could reach it, and Vannie Dildine stood before them. The quadroon's eyes were red, and her face had the moist, slightly swollen appearance that comes of protracted weeping. She looked so frail and miserable that Peter instinctively stepped inside and took her arm to assist her in the mere physical effort of standing. "What is the matter, Mrs.
After the necessary moment of talk, the mulatto inquired for Cissie. The yellow woman seemed slightly ill at ease. "Cissie ain't so well, Peter." "She's not ill?" "N-no; but the excitement an' ever'thing " answered Vannie, vaguely. In the flush of his plans, Peter was keenly disappointed. "It's very important, Mrs. Dildine." Vannie's dried yellow face framed the ghost of a smile.
One or two of his friends stayed in the room with him for a while and said vague things, but there was nothing to say. Later in the afternoon Cissie Dildine and her mother brought his dinner to him. Vannie Dildine, a thin yellow woman, uttered a few disjointed words about Sister Ca'line being a good woman, and stopped amid sentence. There was nothing to say.
Vannie sobbed drearily for a few moments on Peter's breast. "Sh-she did fuh a while: 'n 'en sh-she broke off wid h-him, anyhow, an' an' he swo' out a wa'nt an sont her to jail!" The mother sobbed without comfort, and finally added: "Sh-she in a delicate fix now, an' 'at jail goin' to be a gloomy place fuh Cissie."
"Off take his mask off! Do it yourself!" Barbara's voice was clear and steady. I made three big jumps of the space between us and the leading couple. Vandeman's committee-men obstructed me, the excited yip going amongst them. "Vandeman Bronse Vannie Who let this fool in here? Do we throw him out?"
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