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mother in the hills. It was killing Battle; she heard him now, calling, "Dabney, Dabney! Dickie Boy Featherstone's blowing his horn!" and at the telephone Dabney was talking softly to Troy, "I'm with Dickie Boy Featherstone, gone to Glen Alan.... Good night.... Good night ... It seemed to Ellen that it was for every one of them that added care pressed her heart on these late summer nights ("Now you can taste, Laura," she said), care that stirred in her and that she herself shielded, like the child she carried.
    "Now, Laura. Go get that little bottle of rose water off the top shelf in the pantry. Climb where Roy climbs for the cooky jar and you'll reach it.... Now be putting in a little rose water as you go. Pound good."
    She poured her cake out in four layer pans and set the first two in the oven, gently shutting the door. "Be ready, Laura, when I call you. Oh, save me twenty-four perfect halves—to go on top...."
    She began with the rest of the eggs to make the filling; she would just trust that Laura's paste would do, and make the icing thick on top with the perfect almonds over it close enough to touch.
    "Smell my cake?" she challenged, as Dabney appeared radiant at the pantry door, then coming through, spreading her pink dress to let her mother see her. Ellen turned a little dizzily. Was the cake going to turn out all right? She was always nervous about her cakes. And for George she did want it to be nice—he was so appreciative. "
Don't
pound your poor finger, Laura."
    "I wasn't going to, Aunt Ellen."
    "Oh, Mother, am I beautiful—tonight?" Dabney asked urgently, almost painfully, as though she would run if she heard the answer.
    Laura laid down the noisy pestle. Her lips parted. Dabney rushed across the kitchen and threw her arms tightly around her mother and clung to her.
    Roxie, waiting on the porch, could be heard laughing, two high gentle notes out in the dark.
    From an upper window India's voice came out on the soft air, chanting,
Star light,

Star bright,

First star I've seen tonight,

I wish I may, I wish I might

Have the wish I wish tonight.
    For a moment longer they all held still; India was wishing.

2
    It was the next afternoon. Dabney came down the stairs vaguely in time to the song Mary Lamar Mackey was rippling out in the music room—"Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes." "Oh, I'm a wreck," she sighed absently.
    "Did you have your breakfast? Then run on to your aunts," said her mother, pausing in the hall below, pointing a silver dinner knife at her. "You're a girl engaged to be married and your aunts want to see you." "Your aunts" always referred to the two old-maid sisters of her father's who lived at the Grove, the old place on the river, Aunt Primrose and Aunt Jim Allen, and not to Aunt Tempe who had married Uncle Pinck, or Aunt Rowena or Aunt Annie Laurie who were dead. "I've got all the Negroes your papa could spare me up here on the silver and those miserable chandelier prisms—I don't want you underfoot, even."
    "They saw me that Sunday they came up to dinner," said Dabney, still on the stairs.
    "But you weren't engaged that Sunday—or you hadn't told."
    A veil came over Dabney's eyes—a sort of pleased mournfulness.
    "They'll ask me ten thousand questions."
    "Let me go!" said India quickly. She was sitting on the bottom step finishing a leaf hat. "I'm not really busy."
    "Come on, then," said Dabney. She ran down and leaned over her little sister and smiled at her for what seemed the first time in years.
    "I can come! I'll hop!" Bluet instantly came hopping up with one shoe off, her sunny hair flying. In the corner Roxie's little Sudie, who was "watching" her, stretched meek on the floor with chin in hand. Little Battle tore through the house but didn't stop a minute, except to spank Dabney hard. Mary Lamar Mackey dreamily called, "Where are you all going?"
    "Now get away from Dabney
everybody
, and let her go," said Ellen. "No, Dabney, not Ranny either, this time. You'll dawdle and let him