Silence again; then Hagar leaned across and took up her grandmother's work. "What is it? An afghan? It's lovely soft wool."
"When," asked Old Miss, "are you going to marry--and whom?"
"I do not know, grandmother, that I am going to marry, or whom."
"You should have married Ralph.... All these years have you had any other offers?"
"Have you had any since you set up in this remarkable way for yourself?"
Hagar laughed. "No, grandmother--unless you except Ralph."
"Ha!" said Old Miss in grim triumph; "I knew you wouldn't!"
Miss Serena came to the door. "Father's awake and he wants to see Hagar."
But when Hagar went down and into the big room and up to the great bed, the Colonel declared her to be Maria, grew excited, and said that she shouldn't keep his grandchild from him. "I tell you, woman, Medway and I are going to use authority! The child's Medway's--Medway's next of kin by every law in the land! He can take her from you, and, by God! he shall do it!"
"Father," said Miss Serena, "this is Hagar, grown up."
But the Colonel grew violently angry. "You are all lying!--a man's family conspiring against him! That woman's my daughter-in-law--my son's wife, dependent on me for her bread and shelter and setting up her will against mine! And now she's all for keeping from me my grandchild--she's hiding Gipsy in closets and under the stairs--You have no right. It's not your child, it's Medway's child! That's law. You ought to be whipped!"
"Grandfather," said Hagar, "do you remember Alexandria and the mosques and the Place Mahomet Ali?"
"Why, exactly," said the Colonel. "Well, Gipsy, we always wanted to travel, didn't we? That dragoman seems to know his business--we're going down to Cairo to-day and out to see the pyramids. Want to come along?"
Day followed day at Gilead Balm. Sometimes the Colonel's mind wandered over the seas of creation, with the pilot asleep at the helm; sometimes the pilot suddenly awoke, though it was not apt to be for long. It was eerie when the pilot awoke; when he suddenly sat there, gaunt, with a parchment face and beak-like nose and straying white hair, and in a cool, drawling voice asked intelligent questions about the hour and the season and the plantation happenings.
