"
Easterly appeared startled.
"She is, is she!" he exclaimed. "But here come the ladies." He went
forward at once, but John Taylor drew back. He noted Mrs. Vanderpool,
and thought her too thin and pale. The dashing young Miss Easterly was
more to his taste. He intended to have a wife like that one of these
days.
"Mary," said he to his sister as he finally rose to go, "tell me about
the Cresswells."
Mary explained to him at length the impossibility of her knowing much
about the local white aristocracy of Tooms County, and then told him all
she had heard.
"Mrs. Grey talked to you much?"
"Yes."
"About darky schools?"
"Yes."
"What does she intend to do?"
"I think she will aid Miss Smith first."
"Did you suggest anything?"
"Well, I told her what I thought about cooeperating with the local white
people."
"The Cresswells?"
"Yes--you see Mrs. Vanderpool knows the Cresswells."
"Does, eh? Good! Say, that's a good point. You just bear heavy on
it--cooeperate with the Cresswells."
"Why, yes. But--you see, John, I don't just know whether one _could_
cooeperate with the Cresswells or not--one hears such contradictory
stories of them. But there must be some other white people--"
"Stuff! It's the Cresswells we want."
"Well," Mary was very dubious, "they are--the most important.
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