to?"

"I have to." With this he abruptly turned on his heel and left me
standing on the steps. For a moment I stared after him; and then, as I

rang the bell, he was back again; and with that formality which at times
overtook him he began: "I will ask you to excuse my hasty--"

"Oh, John Mayrant! What a notion!"
But he was by no means to be put off, and he proceeded with stiffer

formality: "I feel that I have not acted politely just now, and I beg to
assure you that I intended no slight."

My first impulse was to lay a hand upon his shoulder and say to him: "My
dear fellow, stuff and nonsense!" Thus I should have treated any Northern

friend; but here was no Northerner. I am glad that I had the sense to
feel that any careless, good-natured putting away of his deliberate and

definitely tendered apology would seem to him a "slight" on my part. His
punctilious value for certain observances between man and man reached me

suddenly and deeply, and took me far from the familiarity which breeds
contempt.

"Why, John Mayrant," I said, "you could never offend me unless I thought
that you wished to, and how should I possibly think that?"

"Thank you," he replied very simply.
I rang the bell a second time. "If we can get into the house," I

suggested, "won't you stop and dine with me?"
He was going to accept. "I shall be--" he had begun, in tones of

gratification, when in one instant his face was stricken with complete
dismay. "I had forgotten," he said; and this time he was gone indeed, and

in a hurry most apparent. It resembled a flight.
What was the matter now? You will naturally think that it was an

appointment with his ladylove which he had forgotten; this was certainly
my supposition as I turned again to the front door. There stood one of

the waitresses, glaring with her white eyes half out of her black face at
the already distant back of John Mayrant.

"Oh!" I thought; but, before I could think any more, the tall, dreadful
boarder--the lady whom I secretly called Juno--swept up the steps, and by

me into the house, with a dignity that one might term deafening.
The waitress now muttered, or rather sang, a series of pious apostrophes.

"Oh, Lawd, de rampages and de ructions! Oh, Lawd, sinner is in my way,
Daniel!" She was strongly, but I think pleasurably, excited; and she next

turned to me with a most natural grin, and saying, "Chick'n's mos' gone,
sah," she went back to the dining room.

This admonition sent me upstairs to make as hasty a toilet as I could.
IX: Juno

Each recent remarkableoccurrence had obliterated its predecessor, and it
was with difficulty that I made a straight parting in my hair. Had it

been Miss Rieppe that John so suddenly ran away to? It seemed now more as
if the boy had been running away from somebody. The waitress had stared

at him with extraordinary interest; she had seen his bruise; perhaps she
knew how he had got it. Her excitement--had he smashed up his official

superior at the custom house? That would be an impossible thing, I told
myself instantly; as well might a nobleman cross swords with a peasant.

Perhaps the stare of the waitress had reminded him of his bruise, and he
might have felt disinclined to show himself with it in a company of

gossiping strangers. Still, that would scarcely account for it- the
dismay with which he had so suddenly left me. Was Juno the cause--she had

come up behind me; he must have seen her and her portentous manner
approaching--had the boy fled from her?

And then, his fierceoutbreak about taking orders from a negro when I was
moralizing over the misfortune of marrying a jackass! I got a sort of

parting in my hair, and went down to the dining room.
Juno was there before me, with her bonnet, or rather her headdress, still

on, and I heard her making apologies to Mrs. Trevise for being so late.
Mrs. Trevise, of course, sat at the head of her table, and Juno sat at

her right hand. I was very glad not to have a seat near Juno, because
this lady was, as I have already hinted, an intolerable person to me.

Either her Southern social position or her rent (she took the whole
second floor, except Mrs. Trevise's own rooms) was of importance to Mrs.

Trevise; but I assure you that her ways kept our landlady's cold,
impervious tact watchful from the beginning to the end of almost every

meal. Juno was one of those persons who possess so many and such strong
feelings themselves that they think they have all the feelings there are;

at least, they certainly consider no one's feelings but their own. She
possessed an inexhaustible store of anecdote, but it was exclusively

about our Civil War; you would have supposed that nothing else had ever
happened in the world. When conversation among the rest of us became

general, she preserved a cold and acrid inattention; when the fancy took
her to open her own mouth, it was always to begin some reminiscence, and

the reminiscence always began: "In September, 1862, when the Northern
vandals," etc., etc., or" When the Northern vandals were repulsed by my

husband's cousin, General Braxton Bragg," etc., etc. Now it was not that
I was personally wounded by the term, because at the time of the vandals

I was not even born, and also because I know that vandals cannot be kept
out of any army. Deeply as I believed the March to the Sea to have been

imperative, of "Sherman's bummers" and their excesses I had a fair
historic knowledge and a very poor opinion; and this I should have been

glad to tell Juno, had she ever given me the chance; but her immodest
sympathy for herself froze all sympathy for her. Why could she not

preserve a well-bred silence upon her sufferings, as did the other old
ladies I had met in Kings Port? Why did she drag them in, thrust them,

poke them, shove them at you? Thus it was that for her insulting
disregard of those whom her words might wound I detested Juno; and as she

was a woman, and nearly old enough to be my grandmother, it was, of
course, out of the question that I should retaliate. When she got very

bad indeed, it was calm Mrs. Trevise's last, but effective, resort to
tinkle a little handbell and scold one of the waitresses whom its sound

would then summon from the kitchen. This bell was tinkled not always by
any means for my sake; other travellers from the North there were who

came and went, pausing at Kings Port between Florida and their habitual
abodes.

At present our company consisted of Juno; a middle-class Englishman
employed in some business capacity in town; a pair of very young

honeymooners from the "up-country"; a Louisiana poetess, who wore the
long, cylindrical ringlets of 1830, and who was attending a convention

the Daughters of Dixie; two or three males and females, best described as
et ceteras; and myself. "I shall only take a mouthful for the sake of

nourishment," Juno was announcing, "and then I shall return to his
bedside."

"Is he very suffering?" inquired the poetess, in melodious accent.
"It was an infamous onslaught," Juno replied.

The poetess threw up her eyes and crooned, "Noble, doughty champion!"
"You may say so indeed, madam," said Juno.

"Raw beefsteak's jolly good for your eye," observed the Briton.
This suggestion did not appear to be heard by Juno.

"I had a row with a chap," the Briton continued. He's my best friend now.
He made me put raw beefsteak--"

"I thank you," interrupted Juno. "He requires no beefsteak, raw or
cooked."

The face of the Briton reddened. "Too groggy to eat, is he?"
Mrs. Trevise tinkled her bell. "Daphne! I have said to you twice to hand

those yams."
"I done handed 'em twice, ma'am."

"Hand them right away, Daphne, and don't be so forgetful." It was not
easy to disturb the composure of Mrs. Trevise.

The poetess now took up the broken thread. "Had I a son," she declared,
"I would sooner witness him starve than hear him take orders from a

menial race."
"But mightn't starving be harder for him to experience than for you to

witness, y' know?" asked the Briton.
At this one of the et ceteras made a sort of snuffing noise, and ate his

dinner hard.
It was the male honeymooner who next spoke. "Must have been quite a

tussle, ma'am."
"It was an infamous onslaught!" repeated Juno. "Wish I'd seen it!" sighed

the honeymooner.