“Effen the Jedge was a king and wo’ a crown,” said Mandy’s John to Daisy, “he couldn’t look mo’ bawn to a th’one.”

Daisy nodded.  “Settin’ at the head o’ that table minds me o’ whut my old Mammy used to say, ‘han’some is as han’some does.’  The Bannisters done han’some and they is handsome.”

“They sure is,” John agreed; “that-all’s whut makes you so good-lookin’, Daisy.”

He came close to her and she drew away.  “You put yo’ min’ on passin’ them plates,” she said with severity, “or you’ll be spillin’ po’k gravy on they haids.”  Her smile took away the sting of her admonition.  John moved on, murmuring, “Well, yo’ does han’some and yo’ is han’some, Daisy, and that’s why I loves you.”

There were speeches after dinner.  One from Randy, in which he thanked them in the name of his mother, and found himself quite suddenly and unexpectedly being fond of the boarders.  Major Prime was not there.  He had been summoned back to Washington, but would return, he hoped, for the week-end.

It was after lunch that Randy and Becky walked to the woods.  Nellie Custis followed them.  They sat down at last at the foot of a hickory tree.  Becky took off her hat and the wind blew her shining hair about her face.  She was pale and wore an air of deep preoccupation.

“Randy,” she asked suddenly out of a long silence, “did you ever kiss a girl?”

Her question did not surprise him.  He and Becky had argued many matters.  And they usually plunged in without preliminaries.  He fancied that Becky was discussing kisses in the abstract.  It never occurred to him that the problem was personal.

“Yes,” he said, “I have.  What about it?”

“Did you—­ask her to marry you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He pulled Nellie Custis’ ears.  “One of them wasn’t a nice sort of girl—­not the kind that I should have cared to introduce to—­you.”

“Yet you cared to—­kiss her?”

Randy flushed faintly.  “I know how it looks to you.  I hated it afterwards, but I couldn’t marry a girl—­like that——­”

“Who was the other girl?”

For a moment he did not reply, then he said with something of an effort, “It was you, Becky.”

“Me?  When?” She turned on him her startled gaze.

“Do you remember at Christmas—­oh, ten years ago—­and your grandfather had a party for you.  There was mistletoe in the hall, and we danced and stopped under the mistletoe——­”

“I remember, Randy—­how long ago it seems.”

“Yet ten years isn’t really such a long time, is it, Becky?  I was only a little boy, but I told myself then that I would never kiss any other girl.  I thought then that—­that some day I might ask you to marry me.  I—­I had a wild dream that I might try to make you love me.  I didn’t know then that poverty is a millstone about a man’s neck.”  He gave a bitter laugh.