turned a hair, as cool as a cucumber, with everybody else sizzling."

They were ascending a hill, and the horse went slowly. Ahead of them
was a buggy without a top. In the buggy were a man and a woman. The
woman had an umbrella over her, and a child in her arms.

"It's Mary Flippin and her father. See if you can't overtake them,
Jefferson. I want you to see Fiddle Flippin, Randy."

"Who is Fiddle Flippin?"

"Mary's little girl. Mary is a war bride. She was in Petersburg
teaching school when the war broke out, and she married a man named
Branch. Then she came home--and she called the baby Fidelity."

"I hope he was a good husband."

"Nobody has seen him, he was ordered away at once. But she is very
proud of him. And the baby is a darling. Just beginning to walk and
talk."

"Stop a minute, Jefferson, while I speak to them."

Mr. Flippin pulled up his fat horse. He was black-haired, ruddy, and
wide of girth. "Well, well," he said, with a big laugh, "it is cer'n'y
good to see you."

Mary Flippin was slender and delicate and her eyes were blue. Her hair
was thick and dark. There was Scotch-Irish blood in the Flippins, and
Mary's charm was in that of duskiness of hair and blueness of eye.