“Burns needed the change—­he hasn’t had a vacation except his honeymoon for years.  By the way, he’s having a second honeymoon over there.”

“I’m very glad,” Charlotte responded.

Then the summons came for the return to the train, and Mr. and Mrs. Macauley, waving to them from the other end of the platform, met them at the step.

On the morning of the third day the party reached their destination.  They were met at the small station by a staid but comfortable equipage, driven by an old family coachman with grizzled, kinky hair and a black face full of solemnity.  They were taken to the hospitable home of the owner of the dignified old carriage and the fat, well-kept horses which had brought them to her door, and were there welcomed as only Southern hostesses can welcome.  Mrs. Catesby’s mother had been a friend of Madam Chase’s youth, and for her sake the daughter had thrown open her house to do honour to the ashes of one whom she had never seen.

“How glad I am,” Charlotte said, soon after her arrival, standing by a window with kind Mrs. Catesby, “to come down here where it is spring.  I could never have borne it—­to put Granny away under the snow.  She didn’t like the snow, though she never said so.  Are those camellias down by the hedge?  Oh, may I go out and pick some—­for Granny?”

“I thought you might like them—­and might want to pick them yourself, or I should have had them ready.  I sent for no other flowers.  I remember my mother telling me how Madam Chase loved them—­as she herself did.”

From an upper window, in the room to which he had been assigned, Leaver saw Charlotte go down the garden path to the hedge, there to fill a small basket with the snowy blooms.  When she turned to go back to the house she found him beside her.

“I see now why you wanted no other flowers,” he said, as he took the basket.  “These are like her—­fair and pure and fragile.”

“She was fond of them.  She wore them in her hair when she was a girl.  They have no fragrance; that is why I want them for her now.  How people can bear strong, sweet flowers around their dead I can never understand.”

“I have always wondered at that, too,” Leaver admitted.  “My mother had the same feeling.”  He looked closely at Charlotte’s face, as the bright sunlight of the Southern spring morning fell upon it.  “You are very tired,” he said, and his voice was like a caress.  “Not in body, but in mind—­and heart.  I wish, by some magic, I could secure for you two full hours’ sleep before—­the hour.”

“I couldn’t sleep.  But I am strong, I shall not break down.”

“No, you will not break down; that wouldn’t be like you.  And to-night—­you shall sleep.  I promise you that.”

“I wish you could,” Charlotte said, and her lips trembled ever so slightly.  “But I shall not.”

“You shall.  Trust me that you shall.  I know a way to make you sleep.”