Weekly Meredy.com E-book - Gone with the Wind - Part One

I love reading the books on which many classic flicks are based. In fact, I collect them. I thought you might like to read them, too. So, I'm starting something new. A free classic movie-related e-book will be featured weekly on my blog.

For today, I've chosen an old favorite of mine: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell Marsh (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949), popularly known as Margaret Mitchell, was an American author, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her novel Gone with the Wind. The novel is one of the most popular books of all time, selling more than 30 million copies. An American film adaptation, released in 1939, became the highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood, and received a record-breaking ten Academy Awards.

Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia to Eugene Mitchell, a lawyer, and Mary Isabelle, much referred to as May Belle, a suffragist of Irish Catholic origin. Mitchell's brother, Stephens, was four years her senior. She often used the nickname "Peggy." Her childhood was spent in the laps of Civil War veterans.

After graduating from Washington Seminary (now The Westminster Schools), she attended Smith College, but withdrew following her final exams in 1918. She returned to Atlanta to take over the household after her mother's death earlier that year from the great Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 (Mitchell later used this pivotal scene from her own life to dramatize Scarlett's discovery of her mother's death from typhoid when Scarlett returns to Tara Plantation).

Mitchell married Berrien "Red" Upshaw in 1922, but they were divorced after it was revealed that he was a bootlegger. She later married Upshaw's friend, John Marsh, on July 4, 1925; Marsh had been best man at her first wedding and legend has it that both men courted Mitchell in 1921 and 1922, but Upshaw proposed first.

Mitchell is reported to have begun writing Gone with the Wind while bedridden with a broken ankle. Her husband, John Marsh, brought home historical books from the public library to amuse her while she recuperated. After she supposedly read all the historical books in the library, he told her, "Peggy, if you want another book, why don't you write your own?" She drew upon her encyclopedic knowledge of the Civil War and dramatic moments from her own life, and typed her epic novel on an old Remington typewriter. She originally called the heroine "Pansy O'Hara," and Tara was "Fontenoy Hall." She considered naming the novel Tote The Weary Load or Tomorrow Is Another Day.

Mitchell wrote for her own amusement, and with solid support from her husband, kept her novel secret from her friends. She hid the voluminous pages under towels, disguising them as a divan, hid them in her closets, and under her bed. She wrote the last chapter first, and skipped around from chapter to chapter. Her husband regularly proofread the growing manuscript to help in continuity. By 1929, her ankle had healed, most of the book was written, and she lost interest in pursuing her literary efforts. The bulk of the work was written between 1925 and 1930 in an apartment Mitchell called "The Dump": the Crescent Apartments are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and are operated as a museum to Mitchell's memory.

While Mitchell used to say that her Gone with the Wind characters were not based on real people, modern researchers have found similarities to some of the people in her life, and people she knew or heard of. For example, the character Rhett Butler may have been modeled after her first husband. The last thing he said to her (supposedly) was, "My dear, I don't give a damn," which Rhett says to Scarlett before he leaves her in the book. ("Frankly" was added for the movie).

Mitchell lived as a modest Atlanta newspaperwoman until a visit from MacMillan editor Harold Latham, who visited Atlanta in 1935. Latham was scouring the South for promising writers, and Mitchell agreed to escort him around Atlanta at the request of her friend, Lois Cole, who worked for Latham. Latham was enchanted with Mitchell, and asked her if she had ever written a book. Mitchell demurred. "Well, if you ever do write a book, please show it to me first!" Latham implored. Later that day, a friend of Mitchell, having heard this conversation laughed. "Imagine, anyone as silly as Peggy writing a book!" she said. Mitchell stewed over this comment, went home, and found most of the old, crumbling envelopes containing her disjointed manuscript. She arrived at The Georgian Terrace Hotel, just as Latham prepared to depart Atlanta. "Here," she said, "take this before I change my mind!"

Latham bought an extra suitcase to accommodate the giant manuscript. When Mitchell arrived home, she was horrified over her impetuous act, and sent a telegram to Latham: "Have changed my mind. Send manuscript back." But Latham had read enough of the manuscript to realize it would be a blockbuster. He wrote to her of his thoughts about its potential success. MacMillan soon sent her an advance cheque to encourage her to complete the novel — she had not composed a first chapter. She completed her work in March 1936.

Gone with the Wind was published on June 30, 1936 and was such an overnight success that its publisher George Platt Brett, President of Macmillan Publishing, gave all its employees an 18% bonus in 1936.

The book was dramatized by David O. Selznick, and released three years later. It was directed by Victor Fleming (Fleming replaced George Cukor). The epic film starred Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, and Olivia de Havilland, and tells a story of the Civil War and its aftermath from a white Southern viewpoint.

The film premiered in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 15, 1939 as the climax of three days of festivities hosted by the mayor which consisted of a parade of limousines featuring stars from the film, receptions, thousands of Confederate flags, false antebellum fronts on stores and homes, and a costume ball. The governor of Georgia declared December 15 a state holiday. President Jimmy Carter would later recall it as "the biggest event to happen in the South in my lifetime."

From December 1939 to June 1940, the film played only advance-ticket road show engagements at a limited number of theaters, before it went into general release in 1941.

It was a sensational hit during the Blitz in London, opening in April 1940 and playing continuously for four years.

It received ten Academy Awards, a record that stood for twenty years. In the American Film Institute's inaugural Top 100 American Films of All Time list of 1998, it was ranked number four, although in the 2007 10th Anniversary edition of that list, it was dropped two places, to number six. In June 2008, AFI revealed its 10 top 10 — the best ten films in ten American film genres—after polling over 1,500 persons from the creative community. Gone with the Wind was acknowledged as the fourth best film in the Epic genre. It has sold more tickets in the U.S. than any other film in history, and is considered a prototype of a Hollywood blockbuster. Today, it is considered one of the greatest and most popular films of all time and one of the most enduring symbols of the Golden Age of Hollywood. When adjusted for inflation, Gone with the Wind is the highest-grossing film of all time.

Mitchell's Death

Margaret Mitchell was struck by a speeding automobile as she crossed Peachtree Street at 13th Street with her husband, John Marsh, on her way to see the British film A Canterbury Tale at The Peachtree Art Theatre in August 1949. She died at Grady Hospital five days later without regaining consciousness. The driver, Hugh Gravitt, was an off-duty taxi driver. He was driving his personal vehicle at the time, but his occupation led to many erroneous references over the years to Mitchell's having been struck by a taxi. Gravitt had been out on $5,450 bond, having been arrested for drunken driving. He had 23 previous traffic violations, according to the police. This incident prompted Georgia Gov. Herman Talmadge to announce that the state would tighten regulations for licensing taxi drivers.

Gravitt was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served 11 months in prison. His conviction was controversial because witnesses said Mitchell stepped into the street without looking, and her friends claimed she often did this.

She was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta.

The house where Mitchell lived while writing her manuscript is known today as The Margaret Mitchell House and located in Midtown Atlanta. A museum dedicated to Gone with the Wind lies a few miles north of Atlanta, in Marietta, Georgia. It is called "Scarlett on the Square," as it is located on the historic Marietta Square. It houses costumes from the film, screenplays, and many artifacts from Gone with the Wind including Mitchell's collection of foreign editions of her book. The house and the museum are major tourist destinations. Another dedication to Mitchell was the 1994 film A Burning Passion: The Margaret Mitchell Story, starring Shannen Doherty as the writer.

Clayton County, the area just south of Atlanta and the setting for the fictional O'Hara plantation, Tara, maintains The Road to Tara Museum in the old railroad depot in downtown Jonesboro.





A Meredy.com E-book

Title: Gone with the Wind (1936)
Author: Margaret Mitchell
Edition: 1
Language: English
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---

Gone with the Wind
By
Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)




PART ONE



CHAPTER I


Scarlett  O'Hara  was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply
blended  the  delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an
arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly
tilted  at  the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin--that skin so
prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns.

Seated  with  Stuart and Brent Tarleton in the cool shade of the porch of Tara, her father's plantation, that bright April afternoon of 1861, she
made  a  pretty picture. Her new green flowered-muslin dress spread its twelve yards of billowing material over her hoops and exactly matched the
flat-heeled  green  morocco  slippers her father had recently brought her from Atlanta. The dress set off to perfection the seventeen-inch waist,
the  smallest in three counties, and the tightly fitting basque showed breasts well matured for her sixteen years. But for all the modesty of her
spreading  skirts,  the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self
was  poorly  concealed.  The  green  eyes  in  the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her
decorous  demeanor.  Her  manners  had been imposed upon her by her mother's gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes
were her own.

On  either  side  of her, the twins lounged easily in their chairs, squinting at the sunlight through tall mint-garnished glasses as they laughed
and talked, their long legs, booted to the knee and thick with saddle muscles, crossed negligently. Nineteen years old, six feet two inches tall,
long of bone and hard of muscle, with sunburned faces and deep auburn hair, their eyes merry and arrogant, their bodies clothed in identical blue
coats and mustard-colored breeches, they were as much alike as two bolls of cotton.

Outside,  the  late  afternoon  sun slanted down in the yard, throwing into gleaming brightness the dogwood trees that were solid masses of white
blossoms against the background of new green. The twins' horses were hitched in the driveway, big animals, red as their masters' hair; and around
the  horses'  legs  quarreled  the  pack  of lean, nervous possum hounds that accompanied Stuart and Brent wherever they went. A little aloof, as
became an aristocrat, lay a black-spotted carriage dog, muzzle on paws, patiently waiting for the boys to go home to supper.

Between  the  hounds  and  the  horses and the twins there was a kinship deeper than that of their constant companionship. They were all healthy,
thoughtless  young animals, sleek, graceful, high-spirited, the boys as mettlesome as the horses they rode, mettlesome and dangerous but, withal,
sweet-tempered to those who knew how to handle them.

Although  born  to the ease of plantation life, waited on hand and foot since infancy, the faces of the three on the porch were neither slack nor
soft.  They  had  the  vigor and alertness of country people who have spent all their lives in the open and troubled their heads very little with
dull  things  in  books.  Life  in  the  north  Georgia  county of Clayton was still new and, according to the standards of Augusta, Savannah and
Charleston,  a  little  crude.  The  more sedate and older sections of the South looked down their noses at the up-country Georgians, but here in
north  Georgia, a lack of the niceties of classical education carried no shame, provided a man was smart in the things that mattered. And raising
good  cotton,  riding well, shooting straight, dancing lightly, squiring the ladies with elegance and carrying one's liquor like a gentleman were
the things that mattered.

In  these  accomplishments the twins excelled, and they were equally outstanding in their notorious inability to learn anything contained between
the  covers  of  books. Their family had more money, more horses, more slaves than any one else in the County, but the boys had less grammar than
most of their poor Cracker neighbors.

It  was for this precise reason that Stuart and Brent were idling on the porch of Tara this April afternoon. They had just been expelled from the
University  of  Georgia,  the fourth university that had thrown them out in two years; and their older brothers, Tom and Boyd, had come home with
them,  because  they  refused  to remain at an institution where the twins were not welcome. Stuart and Brent considered their latest expulsion a
fine  joke,  and  Scarlett, who had not willingly opened a book since leaving the Fayetteville Female Academy the year before, thought it just as
amusing as they did.

"I  know  you  two don't care about being expelled, or Tom either," she said. "But what about Boyd? He's kind of set on getting an education, and
you two have pulled him out of the University of Virginia and Alabama and South Carolina and now Georgia. He'll never get finished at this rate."

"Oh,  he  can read law in Judge Parmalee's office over in Fayetteville," answered Brent carelessly. "Besides, it don't matter much. We'd have had
to come home before the term was out anyway."

"Why?"

"The war, goose! The war's going to start any day, and you don't suppose any of us would stay in college with a war going on, do you?"

"You  know  there isn't going to be any war," said Scarlett, bored. "It's all just talk. Why, Ashley Wilkes and his father told Pa just last week
that  our  commissioners  in Washington would come to--to--an--amicable agreement with Mr. Lincoln about the Confederacy. And anyway, the Yankees
are too scared of us to fight. There won't be any war, and I'm tired of hearing about it."

"Not going to be any war!" cried the twins indignantly, as though they had been defrauded.

"Why,  honey,  of  course there's going to be a war," said Stuart. "The Yankees may be scared of us, but after the way General Beauregard shelled
them out of Fort Sumter day before yesterday, they'll have to fight or stand branded as cowards before the whole world. Why, the Confederacy--"

Scarlett made a mouth of bored impatience.

"If  you say 'war' just once more, I'll go in the house and shut the door. I've never gotten so tired of any one word in my life as 'war,' unless
it's  'secession.' Pa talks war morning, noon and night, and all the gentlemen who come to see him shout about Fort Sumter and States' Rights and
Abe  Lincoln  till I get so bored I could scream! And that's all the boys talk about, too, that and their old Troop. There hasn't been any fun at
any  party  this spring because the boys can't talk about anything else. I'm mighty glad Georgia waited till after Christmas before it seceded or
it would have ruined the Christmas parties, too. If you say 'war' again, I'll go in the house."

She  meant what she said, for she could never long endure any conversation of which she was not the chief subject. But she smiled when she spoke,
consciously  deepening  her  dimple and fluttering her bristly black lashes as swiftly as butterflies' wings. The boys were enchanted, as she had
intended  them  to  be,  and  they hastened to apologize for boring her. They thought none the less of her for her lack of interest. Indeed, they
thought more. War was men's business, not ladies', and they took her attitude as evidence of her femininity.

Having maneuvered them away from the boring subject of war, she went back with interest to their immediate situation.

"What did your mother say about you two being expelled again?"

The  boys  looked  uncomfortable,  recalling  their mother's conduct three months ago when they had come home, by request, from the University of
Virginia.

"Well,"  said  Stuart,  "she hasn't had a chance to say anything yet. Tom and us left home early this morning before she got up, and Tom's laying
out over at the Fontaines' while we came over here."

"Didn't she say anything when you got home last night?"

"We were in luck last night. Just before we got home that new stallion Ma got in Kentucky last month was brought in, and the place was in a stew.
The  big  brute--he's  a  grand horse, Scarlett; you must tell your pa to come over and see him right away--he'd already bitten a hunk out of his
groom  on  the way down here and he'd trampled two of Ma's darkies who met the train at Jonesboro. And just before we got home, he'd about kicked
the  stable  down and half-killed Strawberry, Ma's old stallion. When we got home, Ma was out in the stable with a sackful of sugar smoothing him
down and doing it mighty well, too. The darkies were hanging from the rafters, popeyed, they were so scared, but Ma was talking to the horse like
he  was  folks  and he was eating out of her hand. There ain't nobody like Ma with a horse. And when she saw us she said: 'In Heaven's name, what
are  you  four doing home again? You're worse than the plagues of Egypt!' And then the horse began snorting and rearing and she said: 'Get out of
here!  Can't you see he's nervous, the big darling? I'll tend to you four in the morning!' So we went to bed, and this morning we got away before
she could catch us and left Boyd to handle her."

"Do  you  suppose  she'll hit Boyd?" Scarlett, like the rest of the County, could never get used to the way small Mrs. Tarleton bullied her grown
sons and laid her riding crop on their backs if the occasion seemed to warrant it.

Beatrice Tarleton was a busy woman, having on her hands not only a large cotton plantation, a hundred negroes and eight children, but the largest
horse-breeding  farm in the state as well. She was hot-tempered and easily plagued by the frequent scrapes of her four sons, and while no one was
permitted to whip a horse or a slave, she felt that a lick now and then didn't do the boys any harm.

"Of  course she won't hit Boyd. She never did beat Boyd much because he's the oldest and besides he's the runt of the litter," said Stuart, proud
of his six feet two. "That's why we left him at home to explain things to her. God'lmighty, Ma ought to stop licking us! We're nineteen and Tom's
twenty-one, and she acts like we're six years old."

"Will your mother ride the new horse to the Wilkes barbecue tomorrow?"

"She  wants  to,  but  Pa says he's too dangerous. And, anyway, the girls won't let her. They said they were going to have her go to one party at
least like a lady, riding in the carriage."

"I  hope it doesn't rain tomorrow," said Scarlett. "It's rained nearly every day for a week. There's nothing worse than a barbecue turned into an
indoor picnic."

"Oh,  it'll  be  clear  tomorrow  and  hot  as  June,"  said Stuart. "Look at that sunset. I never saw one redder. You can always tell weather by
sunsets."

They  looked out across the endless acres of Gerald O'Hara's newly plowed cotton fields toward the red horizon. Now that the sun was setting in a
welter of crimson behind the hills across the Flint River, the warmth of the April day was ebbing into a faint but balmy chill.

Spring  had come early that year, with warm quick rains and sudden frothing of pink peach blossoms and dogwood dappling with white stars the dark
river  swamp  and far-off hills. Already the plowing was nearly finished, and the bloody glory of the sunset colored the fresh-cut furrows of red
Georgia  clay  to  even  redder hues. The moist hungry earth, waiting upturned for the cotton seeds, showed pinkish on the sandy tops of furrows,
vermilion  and  scarlet and maroon where shadows lay along the sides of the trenches. The whitewashed brick plantation house seemed an island set
in  a  wild red sea, a sea of spiraling, curving, crescent billows petrified suddenly at the moment when the pink-tipped waves were breaking into
surf.  For here were no long, straight furrows, such as could be seen in the yellow clay fields of the flat middle Georgia country or in the lush
black  earth of the coastal plantations. The rolling foothill country of north Georgia was plowed in a million curves to keep the rich earth from
washing down into the river bottoms.

It was a savagely red land, blood-colored after rains, brick dust in droughts, the best cotton land in the world. It was a pleasant land of white
houses,  peaceful  plowed  fields  and  sluggish yellow rivers, but a land of contrasts, of brightest sun glare and densest shade. The plantation
clearings  and  miles of cotton fields smiled up to a warm sun, placid, complacent. At their edges rose the virgin forests, dark and cool even in
the  hottest  noons, mysterious, a little sinister, the soughing pines seeming to wait with an age-old patience, to threaten with soft sighs: "Be
careful! Be careful! We had you once. We can take you back again."

To the ears of the three on the porch came the sounds of hooves, the jingling of harness chains and the shrill careless laughter of negro voices,
as  the  field  hands  and mules came in from the fields. From within the house floated the soft voice of Scarlett's mother, Ellen O'Hara, as she
called  to  the  little  black  girl  who carried her basket of keys. The high-pitched, childish voice answered "Yas'm," and there were sounds of
footsteps  going  out  the  back way toward the smokehouse where Ellen would ration out the food to the home-coming hands. There was the click of
china and the rattle of silver as Pork, the valet-butler of Tara, laid the table for supper.

At  these  last sounds, the twins realized it was time they were starting home. But they were loath to face their mother and they lingered on the
porch of Tara, momentarily expecting Scarlett to give them an invitation to supper.

"Look, Scarlett. About tomorrow," said Brent. "Just because we've been away and didn't know about the barbecue and the ball, that's no reason why
we shouldn't get plenty of dances tomorrow night. You haven't promised them all, have you?"

"Well, I have! How did I know you all would be home? I couldn't risk being a wallflower just waiting on you two."

"You a wallflower!" The boys laughed uproariously.

"Look,  honey.  You've  got  to give me the first waltz and Stu the last one and you've got to eat supper with us. We'll sit on the stair landing
like we did at the last ball and get Mammy Jincy to come tell our fortunes again."

"I  don't  like  Mammy  Jincy's fortunes. You know she said I was going to marry a gentleman with jet-black hair and a long black mustache, and I
don't like black-haired gentlemen."

"You like 'em red-headed, don't you, honey?" grinned Brent. "Now, come on, promise us all the waltzes and the supper."

"If you'll promise, we'll tell you a secret," said Stuart.

"What?" cried Scarlett, alert as a child at the word.

"Is it what we heard yesterday in Atlanta, Stu? If it is, you know we promised not to tell."

"Well, Miss Pitty told us."

"Miss Who?"

"You know, Ashley Wilkes' cousin who lives in Atlanta, Miss Pittypat Hamilton--Charles and Melanie Hamilton's aunt."

"I do, and a sillier old lady I never met in all my life."

"Well,  when  we  were in Atlanta yesterday, waiting for the home train, her carriage went by the depot and she stopped and talked to us, and she
told us there was going to be an engagement announced tomorrow night at the Wilkes ball."

"Oh.  I  know about that," said Scarlett in disappointment. "That silly nephew of hers, Charlie Hamilton, and Honey Wilkes. Everybody's known for
years that they'd get married some time, even if he did seem kind of lukewarm about it."

"Do you think he's silly?" questioned Brent. "Last Christmas you sure let him buzz round you plenty."

"I couldn't help him buzzing," Scarlett shrugged negligently. "I think he's an awful sissy."

"Besides, it isn't his engagement that's going to be announced," said Stuart triumphantly. "It's Ashley's to Charlie's sister, Miss Melanie!"

Scarlett's  face  did  not  change  but her lips went white--like a person who has received a stunning blow without warning and who, in the first
moments  of shock, does not realize what has happened. So still was her face as she stared at Stuart that he, never analytic, took it for granted
that she was merely surprised and very interested.

"Miss  Pitty told us they hadn't intended announcing it till next year, because Miss Melly hasn't been very well; but with all the war talk going
around,  everybody  in  both  families  thought  it  would  be  better  to get married soon. So it's to be announced tomorrow night at the supper
intermission. Now, Scarlett, we've told you the secret, so you've got to promise to eat supper with us."

"Of course I will," Scarlett said automatically.

"And all the waltzes?"

"All."

"You're sweet! I'll bet the other boys will be hopping mad."

"Let 'em be mad," said Brent. "We two can handle 'em. Look, Scarlett. Sit with us at the barbecue in the morning."

"What?"

Stuart repeated his request.

"Of course."

The  twins looked at each other jubilantly but with some surprise. Although they considered themselves Scarlett's favored suitors, they had never
before  gained  tokens of this favor so easily. Usually she made them beg and plead, while she put them off, refusing to give a Yes or No answer,
laughing if they sulked, growing cool if they became angry. And here she had practically promised them the whole of tomorrow--seats by her at the
barbecue,  all  the waltzes (and they'd see to it that the dances were all waltzes!) and the supper intermission. This was worth getting expelled
from the university.

Filled  with  new  enthusiasm by their success, they lingered on, talking about the barbecue and the ball and Ashley Wilkes and Melanie Hamilton,
interrupting  each other, making jokes and laughing at them, hinting broadly for invitations to supper. Some time had passed before they realized
that Scarlett was having very little to say. The atmosphere had somehow changed. Just how, the twins did not know, but the fine glow had gone out
of  the afternoon. Scarlett seemed to be paying little attention to what they said, although she made the correct answers. Sensing something they
could not understand, baffled and annoyed by it, the twins struggled along for a while, and then rose reluctantly, looking at their watches.

The  sun  was  low  across  the  new-plowed  fields and the tall woods across the river were looming blackly in silhouette. Chimney swallows were
darting swiftly across the yard, and chickens, ducks and turkeys were waddling and strutting and straggling in from the fields.

Stuart  bellowed:  "Jeems!" And after an interval a tall black boy of their own age ran breathlessly around the house and out toward the tethered
horses.  Jeems was their body servant and, like the dogs, accompanied them everywhere. He had been their childhood playmate and had been given to
the  twins  for  their  own  on  their  tenth  birthday.  At  the sight of him, the Tarleton hounds rose up out of the red dust and stood waiting
expectantly  for  their  masters. The boys bowed, shook hands and told Scarlett they'd be over at the Wilkeses' early in the morning, waiting for
her.  Then they were off down the walk at a rush, mounted their horses and, followed by Jeems, went down the avenue of cedars at a gallop, waving
their hats and yelling back to her.

When  they  had  rounded  the  curve  of  the dusty road that hid them from Tara, Brent drew his horse to a stop under a clump of dogwood. Stuart
halted,  too, and the darky boy pulled up a few paces behind them. The horses, feeling slack reins, stretched down their necks to crop the tender
spring  grass,  and  the  patient  hounds  lay  down  again  in the soft red dust and looked up longingly at the chimney swallows circling in the
gathering dusk. Brent's wide ingenuous face was puzzled and mildly indignant.

"Look," he said. "Don't it look to you like she would of asked us to stay for supper?"

"I thought she would," said Stuart. "I kept waiting for her to do it, but she didn't. What do you make of it?"

"I  don't  make  anything  of it. But it just looks to me like she might of. After all, it's our first day home and she hasn't seen us in quite a
spell. And we had lots more things to tell her."

"It looked to me like she was mighty glad to see us when we came."

"I thought so, too."

"And then, about a half-hour ago, she got kind of quiet, like she had a headache."

"I noticed that but I didn't pay it any mind then. What do you suppose ailed her?"

"I dunno. Do you suppose we said something that made her mad?"

They both thought for a minute.

"I can't think of anything. Besides, when Scarlett gets mad, everybody knows it. She don't hold herself in like some girls do."

"Yes,  that's  what  I like about her. She don't go around being cold and hateful when she's mad--she tells you about it. But it was something we
did  or  said  that made her shut up talking and look sort of sick. I could swear she was glad to see us when we came and was aiming to ask us to
supper."

"You don't suppose it's because we got expelled?"

"Hell, no! Don't be a fool. She laughed like everything when we told her about it. And besides Scarlett don't set any more store by book learning
than we do."

Brent turned in the saddle and called to the negro groom.

"Jeems!"

"Suh?"

"You heard what we were talking to Miss Scarlett about?"

"Nawsuh, Mist' Brent! Huccome you think Ah be spyin' on w'ite folks?"

"Spying,  my  God!  You  darkies  know everything that goes on. Why, you liar, I saw you with my own eyes sidle round the corner of the porch and
squat in the cape jessamine bush by the wall. Now, did you hear us say anything that might have made Miss Scarlett mad--or hurt her feelings?"

Thus appealed to, Jeems gave up further pretense of not having overheard the conversation and furrowed his black brow.

"Nawsuh,  Ah din' notice y'all say anything ter mek her mad. Look ter me lak she sho glad ter see you an' sho had missed you, an' she cheep along
happy  as  a  bird, tell 'bout de time y'all got ter talkin' 'bout Mist' Ashley an' Miss Melly Hamilton gittin' mah'ied. Den she quiet down lak a
bird w'en de hawk fly ober."

The twins looked at each other and nodded, but without comprehension.

"Jeems  is right. But I don't see why," said Stuart. "My Lord! Ashley don't mean anything to her, 'cept a friend. She's not crazy about him. It's
us she's crazy about."

Brent nodded an agreement.

"But  do  you  suppose,"  he  said,  "that maybe Ashley hadn't told her he was going to announce it tomorrow night and she was mad at him for not
telling her, an old friend, before he told everybody else? Girls set a big store on knowing such things first."

"Well,  maybe. But what if he hadn't told her it was tomorrow? It was supposed to be a secret and a surprise, and a man's got a right to keep his
own  engagement  quiet, hasn't he? We wouldn't have known it if Miss Melly's aunt hadn't let it out. But Scarlett must have known he was going to
marry  Miss  Melly sometime. Why, we've known it for years. The Wilkes and Hamiltons always marry their own cousins. Everybody knew he'd probably
marry her some day, just like Honey Wilkes is going to marry Miss Melly's brother, Charles."

"Well, I give it up. But I'm sorry she didn't ask us to supper. I swear I don't want to go home and listen to Ma take on about us being expelled.
It isn't as if this was the first time."

"Maybe Boyd will have smoothed her down by now. You know what a slick talker that little varmint is. You know he always can smooth her down."

"Yes, he can do it, but it takes Boyd time. He has to talk around in circles till Ma gets so confused that she gives up and tells him to save his
voice  for  his  law  practice.  But he ain't had time to get good started yet. Why, I'll bet you Ma is still so excited about the new horse that
she'll  never  even realize we're home again till she sits down to supper tonight and sees Boyd. And before supper is over she'll be going strong
and  breathing fire. And it'll be ten o'clock before Boyd gets a chance to tell her that it wouldn't have been honorable for any of us to stay in
college  after  the  way the Chancellor talked to you and me. And it'll be midnight before he gets her turned around to where she's so mad at the
Chancellor she'll be asking Boyd why he didn't shoot him. No, we can't go home till after midnight."

The twins looked at each other glumly. They were completely fearless of wild horses, shooting affrays and the indignation of their neighbors, but
they  had  a  wholesome  fear  of  their  red-haired  mother's outspoken remarks and the riding crop that she did not scruple to lay across their
breeches.

"Well, look," said Brent. "Let's go over to the Wilkes. Ashley and the girls'll be glad to have us for supper."

Stuart looked a little discomforted.

"No, don't let's go there. They'll be in a stew getting ready for the barbecue tomorrow and besides--"

"Oh, I forgot about that," said Brent hastily. "No, don't let's go there."

They clucked to their horses and rode along in silence for a while, a flush of embarrassment on Stuart's brown cheeks. Until the previous summer,
Stuart  had courted India Wilkes with the approbation of both families and the entire County. The County felt that perhaps the cool and contained
India  Wilkes  would have a quieting effect on him. They fervently hoped so, at any rate. And Stuart might have made the match, but Brent had not
been  satisfied. Brent liked India but he thought her mighty plain and tame, and he simply could not fall in love with her himself to keep Stuart
company.  That was the first time the twins' interest had ever diverged, and Brent was resentful of his brother's attentions to a girl who seemed
to him not at all remarkable.

Then,  last  summer  at  a  political speaking in a grove of oak trees at Jonesboro, they both suddenly became aware of Scarlett O'Hara. They had
known  her  for  years, and, since their childhood, she had been a favorite playmate, for she could ride horses and climb trees almost as well as
they. But now to their amazement she had become a grown-up young lady and quite the most charming one in all the world.

They  noticed  for  the  first time how her green eyes danced, how deep her dimples were when she laughed, how tiny her hands and feet and what a
small  waist  she  had.  Their  clever  remarks  sent  her  into  merry peals of laughter and, inspired by the thought that she considered them a
remarkable pair, they fairly outdid themselves.

It  was  a  memorable day in the life of the twins. Thereafter, when they talked it over, they always wondered just why they had failed to notice
Scarlett's  charms before. They never arrived at the correct answer, which was that Scarlett on that day had decided to make them notice. She was
constitutionally  unable to endure any man being in love with any woman not herself, and the sight of India Wilkes and Stuart at the speaking had
been  too  much  for  her  predatory  nature.  Not content with Stuart alone, she had set her cap for Brent as well, and with a thoroughness that
overwhelmed the two of them.

Now  they  were  both in love with her, and India Wilkes and Letty Munroe, from Lovejoy, whom Brent had been half-heartedly courting, were far in
the  back  of  their minds. Just what the loser would do, should Scarlett accept either one of them, the twins did not ask. They would cross that
bridge  when  they came to it. For the present they were quite satisfied to be in accord again about one girl, for they had no jealousies between
them. It was a situation which interested the neighbors and annoyed their mother, who had no liking for Scarlett.

"It  will  serve you right if that sly piece does accept one of you," she said. "Or maybe she'll accept both of you, and then you'll have to move
to Utah, if the Mormons'll have you--which I doubt. . . . All that bothers me is that some one of these days you're both going to get lickered up
and  jealous  of  each  other  about  that  two-faced,  little, green-eyed baggage, and you'll shoot each other. But that might not be a bad idea
either."

Since the day of the speaking, Stuart had been uncomfortable in India's presence. Not that India ever reproached him or even indicated by look or
gesture  that  she  was aware of his abruptly changed allegiance. She was too much of a lady. But Stuart felt guilty and ill at ease with her. He
knew  he  had  made  India  love  him  and he knew that she still loved him and, deep in his heart, he had the feeling that he had not played the
gentleman.  He  still  liked  her tremendously and respected her for her cool good breeding, her book learning and all the sterling qualities she
possessed.  But, damn it, she was just so pallid and uninteresting and always the same, beside Scarlett's bright and changeable charm. You always
knew  where  you stood with India and you never had the slightest notion with Scarlett. That was enough to drive a man to distraction, but it had
its charm.

"Well,  let's  go over to Cade Calvert's and have supper. Scarlett said Cathleen was home from Charleston. Maybe she'll have some news about Fort
Sumter that we haven't heard."

"Not  Cathleen. I'll lay you two to one she didn't even know the fort was out there in the harbor, much less that it was full of Yankees until we
shelled them out. All she'll know about is the balls she went to and the beaux she collected."

"Well, it's fun to hear her gabble. And it'll be somewhere to hide out till Ma has gone to bed."

"Well,  hell!  I like Cathleen and she is fun and I'd like to hear about Caro Rhett and the rest of the Charleston folks; but I'm damned if I can
stand sitting through another meal with that Yankee stepmother of hers."

"Don't be too hard on her, Stuart. She means well."

"I'm not being hard on her. I feel sorry for her, but I don't like people I've got to feel sorry for. And she fusses around so much, trying to do
the  right thing and make you feel at home, that she always manages to say and do just exactly the wrong thing. She gives me the fidgets! And she
thinks  Southerners are wild barbarians. She even told Ma so. She's afraid of Southerners. Whenever we're there she always looks scared to death.
She  reminds  me  of a skinny hen perched on a chair, her eyes kind of bright and blank and scared, all ready to flap and squawk at the slightest
move anybody makes."

"Well, you can't blame her. You did shoot Cade in the leg."

"Well,  I was lickered up or I wouldn't have done it," said Stuart. "And Cade never had any hard feelings. Neither did Cathleen or Raiford or Mr.
Calvert.  It  was  just  that  Yankee  stepmother  who squalled and said I was a wild barbarian and decent people weren't safe around uncivilized
Southerners."

"Well, you can't blame her. She's a Yankee and ain't got very good manners; and, after all, you did shoot him and he is her stepson."

"Well,  hell! That's no excuse for insulting me! You are Ma's own blood son, but did she take on that time Tony Fontaine shot you in the leg? No,
she just sent for old Doc Fontaine to dress it and asked the doctor what ailed Tony's aim. Said she guessed licker was spoiling his marksmanship.
Remember how mad that made Tony?"

Both boys yelled with laughter.

"Ma's a card!" said Brent with loving approval. "You can always count on her to do the right thing and not embarrass you in front of folks."

"Yes,  but  she's  mighty  liable  to  talk embarrassing in front of Father and the girls when we get home tonight," said Stuart gloomily. "Look,
Brent. I guess this means we don't go to Europe. You know Mother said if we got expelled from another college we couldn't have our Grand Tour."

"Well,  hell!  We don't care, do we? What is there to see in Europe? I'll bet those foreigners can't show us a thing we haven't got right here in
Georgia.  I'll  bet  their  horses  aren't  as fast or their girls as pretty, and I know damn well they haven't got any rye whisky that can touch
Father's."

"Ashley Wilkes said they had an awful lot of scenery and music. Ashley liked Europe. He's always talking about it."

"Well--you  know  how  the  Wilkes are. They are kind of queer about music and books and scenery. Mother says it's because their grandfather came
from Virginia. She says Virginians set quite a store by such things."

"They  can  have  'em.  Give  me  a good horse to ride and some good licker to drink and a good girl to court and a bad girl to have fun with and
anybody  can  have their Europe. . . . What do we care about missing the Tour? Suppose we were in Europe now, with the war coming on? We couldn't
get home soon enough. I'd heap rather go to a war than go to Europe."

"So would I, any day. . . . Look, Brent! I know where we can go for supper. Let's ride across the swamp to Abel Wynder's place and tell him we're
all four home again and ready for drill."

"That's an idea!" cried Brent with enthusiasm. "And we can hear all the news of the Troop and find out what color they finally decided on for the
uniforms."

"If  it's  Zouave, I'm damned if I'll go in the troop. I'd feel like a sissy in those baggy red pants. They look like ladies' red flannel drawers
to me."

"Is  y'all  aimin'  ter  go  ter Mist' Wynder's? 'Cause ef you is, you ain' gwine git much supper," said Jeems. "Dey cook done died, an' dey ain'
bought a new one. Dey got a fe'el han' cookin', an' de niggers tells me she is de wustest cook in de state."

"Good God! Why don't they buy another cook?"

"Huccome po' w'ite trash buy any niggers? Dey ain' never owned mo'n fo' at de mostes'."

There was frank contempt in Jeems' voice. His own social status was assured because the Tarletons owned a hundred negroes and, like all slaves of
large planters, he looked down on small farmers whose slaves were few.

"I'm  going  to  beat your hide off for that," cried Stuart fiercely. Don't you call Abel Wynder 'po' white.' Sure he's poor, but he ain't trash;
and  I'm  damned  if  I'll  have any man, darky or white, throwing off on him. There ain't a better man in this County, or why else did the Troop
elect him lieutenant?"

"Ah  ain'  never  figgered dat out, mahseff," replied Jeems, undisturbed by his master's scowl. "Look ter me lak dey'd 'lect all de awficers frum
rich gempmum, 'stead of swamp trash."

"He  ain't  trash!  Do  you  mean  to  compare him with real white trash like the Slatterys? Able just ain't rich. He's a small farmer, not a big
planter,  and  if the boys thought enough of him to elect him lieutenant, then it's not for any darky to talk impudent about him. The Troop knows
what it's doing."

The  troop  of  cavalry had been organized three months before, the very day that Georgia seceded from the Union, and since then the recruits had
been  whistling  for  war.  The  outfit was as yet unnamed, though not for want of suggestions. Everyone had his own idea on that subject and was
loath  to  relinquish  it, just as everyone had ideas about the color and cut of the uniforms. "Clayton Wild Cats," "Fire Eaters," "North Georgia
Hussars,"  "Zouaves,"  "The  Inland Rifles" (although the Troop was to be armed with pistols, sabers and bowie knives, and not with rifles), "The
Clayton Grays," "The Blood and Thunderers," "The Rough and Readys," all had their adherents. Until matters were settled, everyone referred to the
organization  as  the  Troop  and,  despite the high-sounding name finally adopted, they were known to the end of their usefulness simply as "The
Troop."

The  officers  were  elected  by  the  members, for no one in the County had had any military experience except a few veterans of the Mexican and
Seminole  wars  and,  besides,  the Troop would have scorned a veteran as a leader if they had not personally liked him and trusted him. Everyone
liked  the  four  Tarleton boys and the three Fontaines, but regretfully refused to elect them, because the Tarletons got lickered up too quickly
and  liked  to  skylark, and the Fontaines had such quick, murderous tempers. Ashley Wilkes was elected captain, because he was the best rider in
the County and because his cool head was counted on to keep some semblance of order. Raiford Calvert was made first lieutenant, because everybody
liked Raif, and Able Wynder, son of a swamp trapper, himself a small farmer, was elected second lieutenant.

Abel  was  a  shrewd,  grave  giant,  illiterate,  kind of heart, older than the other boys and with as good or better manners in the presence of
ladies.  There was little snobbery in the Troop. Too many of their fathers and grandfathers had come up to wealth from the small farmer class for
that.  Moreover,  Able  was  the best shot in the Troop, a real sharpshooter who could pick out the eye of a squirrel at seventy-five yards, and,
too,  he  knew  all  about  living  outdoors,  building  fires in the rain, tracking animals and finding water. The Troop bowed to real worth and
moreover,  because  they  liked him, they made him an officer. He bore the honor gravely and with no untoward conceit, as though it were only his
due.  But  the  planters'  ladies  and the planters' slaves could not overlook the fact that he was not born a gentleman, even if their men folks
could.

In  the  beginning,  the  Troop had been recruited exclusively from the sons of planters, a gentleman's outfit, each man supplying his own horse,
arms,  equipment,  uniform  and  body servant. But rich planters were few in the young county of Clayton, and, in order to muster a full-strength
troop, it had been necessary to raise more recruits among the sons of small farmers, hunters in the backwoods, swamp trappers, Crackers and, in a
very few cases, even poor whites, if they were above the average of their class.

These  latter young men were as anxious to fight the Yankees, should war come, as were their richer neighbors; but the delicate question of money
arose.  Few small farmers owned horses. They carried on their farm operations with mules and they had no surplus of these, seldom more than four.
The mules could not be spared to go off to war, even if they had been acceptable for the Troop, which they emphatically were not. As for the poor
whites,  they  considered  themselves well off if they owned one mule. The backwoods folks and the swamp dwellers owned neither horses nor mules.
They lived entirely off the produce of their lands and the game in the swamp, conducting their business generally by the barter system and seldom
seeing  five  dollars  in  cash  a year, and horses and uniforms were out of their reach. But they were as fiercely proud in their poverty as the
planters  were  in their wealth, and they would accept nothing that smacked of charity from their rich neighbors. So, to save the feelings of all
and  to bring the Troop up to full strength, Scarlett's father, John Wilkes, Buck Munroe, Jim Tarleton, Hugh Calvert, in fact every large planter
in  the  County with the one exception of Angus MacIntosh, had contributed money to completely outfit the Troop, horse and man. The upshot of the
matter  was  that  every  planter  agreed  to  pay  for equipping his own sons and a certain number of the others, but the manner of handling the
arrangements was such that the less wealthy members of the outfit could accept horses and uniforms without offense to their honor.

The Troop met twice a week in Jonesboro to drill and to pray for the war to begin. Arrangements had not yet been completed for obtaining the full
quota  of  horses,  but those who had horses performed what they imagined to be cavalry maneuvers in the field behind the courthouse, kicked up a
great  deal  of  dust,  yelled themselves hoarse and waved the Revolutionary-war swords that had been taken down from parlor walls. Those who, as
yet, had no horses sat on the curb in front of Bullard's store and watched their mounted comrades, chewed tobacco and told yarns. Or else engaged
in  shooting matches. There was no need to teach any of the men to shoot. Most Southerners were born with guns in their hands, and lives spent in
hunting had made marksmen of them all.

From planters' homes and swamp cabins, a varied array of firearms came to each muster. There were long squirrel guns that had been new when first
the  Alleghenies  were  crossed,  old muzzle-loaders that had claimed many an Indian when Georgia was new, horse pistols that had seen service in
1812,  in  the  Seminole  wars  and in Mexico, silver-mounted dueling pistols, pocket derringers, double-barreled hunting pieces and handsome new
rifles of English make with shining stocks of fine wood.

Drill  always  ended  in  the  saloons  of  Jonesboro, and by nightfall so many fights had broken out that the officers were hard put to ward off
casualties  until  the Yankees could inflict them. It was during one of these brawls that Stuart Tarleton had shot Cade Calvert and Tony Fontaine
had  shot  Brent.  The twins had been at home, freshly expelled from the University of Virginia, at the time the Troop was organized and they had
joined enthusiastically; but after the shooting episode, two months ago, their mother had packed them off to the state university, with orders to
stay there. They had sorely missed the excitement of the drills while away, and they counted education well lost if only they could ride and yell
and shoot off rifles in the company of their friends.

"Well,  let's  cut  across  country  to Abel's," suggested Brent. "We can go through Mr. O'Hara's river bottom and the Fontaine's pasture and get
there in no time."

"We ain' gwine git nothin' ter eat 'cept possum an' greens," argued Jeems.

"You ain't going to get anything," grinned Stuart. "Because you are going home and tell Ma that we won't be home for supper."

"No, Ah ain'!" cried Jeems in alarm. "No, Ah ain'! Ah doan git no mo' fun outer havin' Miss Beetriss lay me out dan y'all does. Fust place she'll
ast me huccome Ah let y'all git expelled agin. An' nex' thing, huccome Ah din' bring y'all home ternight so she could lay you out. An' den she'll
light  on  me  lak a duck on a June bug, an' fust thing Ah know Ah'll be ter blame fer it all. Ef y'all doan tek me ter Mist' Wynder's, Ah'll lay
out in de woods all night an' maybe de patterollers git me, 'cause Ah heap ruther de patterollers git me dan Miss Beetriss when she in a state."

The twins looked at the determined black boy in perplexity and indignation.

"He'd  be  just  fool  enough to let the patterollers get him and that would give Ma something else to talk about for weeks. I swear, darkies are
more trouble. Sometimes I think the Abolitionists have got the right idea."

"Well, it wouldn't be right to make Jeems face what we don't want to face. We'll have to take him. But, look, you impudent black fool, if you put
on any airs in front of the Wynder darkies and hint that we all the time have fried chicken and ham, while they don't have nothing but rabbit and
possum, I'll--I'll tell Ma. And we won't let you go to the war with us, either."

"Airs? Me put on airs fo' dem cheap niggers? Nawsuh, Ah got better manners. Ain' Miss Beetriss taught me manners same as she taught y'all?"

"She didn't do a very good job on any of the three of us," said Stuart. "Come on, let's get going."

He  backed  his  big  red  horse  and  then, putting spurs to his side, lifted him easily over the split rail fence into the soft field of Gerald
O'Hara's  plantation.  Brent's  horse followed and then Jeems', with Jeems clinging to pommel and mane. Jeems did not like to jump fences, but he
had jumped higher ones than this in order to keep up with his masters.

As they picked their way across the red furrows and down the hill to the river bottom in the deepening dusk, Brent yelled to his brother:

"Look, Stu! Don't it seem like to you that Scarlett WOULD have asked us to supper?"

"I kept thinking she would," yelled Stuart. "Why do you suppose . . ."



CHAPTER II


When  the  twins left Scarlett standing on the porch of Tara and the last sound of flying hooves had died away, she went back to her chair like a
sleepwalker.  Her  face felt stiff as from pain and her mouth actually hurt from having stretched it, unwillingly, in smiles to prevent the twins
from learning her secret. She sat down wearily, tucking one foot under her, and her heart swelled up with misery, until it felt too large for her
bosom. It beat with odd little jerks; her hands were cold, and a feeling of disaster oppressed her. There were pain and bewilderment in her face,
the  bewilderment  of  a  pampered  child  who has always had her own way for the asking and who now, for the first time, was in contact with the
unpleasantness of life.

Ashley to marry Melanie Hamilton!

Oh,  it  couldn't  be  true! The twins were mistaken. They were playing one of their jokes on her. Ashley couldn't, couldn't be in love with her.
Nobody  could,  not  with  a mousy little person like Melanie. Scarlett recalled with contempt Melanie's thin childish figure, her serious heart-
shaped face that was plain almost to homeliness. And Ashley couldn't have seen her in months. He hadn't been in Atlanta more than twice since the
house party he gave last year at Twelve Oaks. No, Ashley couldn't be in love with Melanie, because--oh, she couldn't be mistaken!--because he was
in love with her! She, Scarlett, was the one he loved--she knew it!

Scarlett  heard  Mammy's  lumbering tread shaking the floor of the hall and she hastily untucked her foot and tried to rearrange her face in more
placid  lines.  It  would never do for Mammy to suspect that anything was wrong. Mammy felt that she owned the O'Haras, body and soul, that their
secrets  were  her secrets; and even a hint of a mystery was enough to set her upon the trail as relentlessly as a bloodhound. Scarlett knew from
experience  that, if Mammy's curiosity were not immediately satisfied, she would take up the matter with Ellen, and then Scarlett would be forced
to reveal everything to her mother, or think up some plausible lie.

Mammy  emerged  from  the  hall, a huge old woman with the small, shrewd eyes of an elephant. She was shining black, pure African, devoted to her
last drop of blood to the O'Haras, Ellen's mainstay, the despair of her three daughters, the terror of the other house servants. Mammy was black,
but  her code of conduct and her sense of pride were as high as or higher than those of her owners. She had been raised in the bedroom of Solange
Robillard, Ellen O'Hara's mother, a dainty, cold, high-nosed French-woman, who spared neither her children nor her servants their just punishment
for  any  infringement  of decorum. She had been Ellen's mammy and had come with her from Savannah to the up-country when she married. Whom Mammy
loved, she chastened. And, as her love for Scarlett and her pride in her were enormous, the chastening process was practically continuous.

"Is  de gempmum gone? Huccome you din' ast dem ter stay fer supper, Miss Scarlett? Ah done tole Poke ter lay two extry plates fer dem. Whar's yo'
manners?"

"Oh, I was so tired of hearing them talk about the war that I couldn't have endured it through supper, especially with Pa joining in and shouting
about Mr. Lincoln."

"You  ain'  got no mo' manners dan a fe'el han', an' after Miss Ellen an' me done labored wid you. An' hyah you is widout yo' shawl! An' de night
air fixin' ter set in! Ah done tole you an' tole you 'bout gittin' fever frum settin' in de night air wid nuthin' on yo' shoulders. Come on in de
house, Miss Scarlett."

Scarlett  turned  away from Mammy with studied nonchalance, thankful that her face had been unnoticed in Mammy's preoccupation with the matter of
the shawl.

"No, I want to sit here and watch the sunset. It's so pretty. You run get my shawl. Please, Mammy, and I'll sit here till Pa comes home."

"Yo' voice soun' lak you catchin' a cole," said Mammy suspiciously.

"Well, I'm not," said Scarlett impatiently. "You fetch me my shawl."

Mammy waddled back into the hall and Scarlett heard her call softly up the stairwell to the upstairs maid.

"You,  Rosa!  Drap  me  Miss Scarlett's shawl." Then, more loudly: "Wuthless nigger! She ain' never whar she does nobody no good. Now, Ah got ter
climb up an' git it mahseff."

Scarlett  heard  the  stairs  groan  and  she  got  softly  to her feet. When Mammy returned she would resume her lecture on Scarlett's breach of
hospitality, and Scarlett felt that she could not endure prating about such a trivial matter when her heart was breaking. As she stood, hesitant,
wondering  where  she  could hide until the ache in her breast subsided a little, a thought came to her, bringing a small ray of hope. Her father
had  ridden over to Twelve Oaks, the Wilkes plantation, that afternoon to offer to buy Dilcey, the broad wife of his valet, Pork. Dilcey was head
woman  and  midwife  at  Twelve Oaks, and, since the marriage six months ago, Pork had deviled his master night and day to buy Dilcey, so the two
could live on the same plantation. That afternoon, Gerald, his resistance worn thin, had set out to make an offer for Dilcey.

Surely,  thought  Scarlett, Pa will know whether this awful story is true. Even if he hasn't actually heard anything this afternoon, perhaps he's
noticed  something, sensed some excitement in the Wilkes family. If I can just see him privately before supper, perhaps I'll find out the truth--
that it's just one of the twins' nasty practical jokes.

It was time for Gerald's return and, if she expected to see him alone, there was nothing for her to do except meet him where the driveway entered
the  road.  She went quietly down the front steps, looking carefully over her shoulder to make sure Mammy was not observing her from the upstairs
windows. Seeing no broad black face, turbaned in snowy white, peering disapprovingly from between fluttering curtains, she boldly snatched up her
green flowered skirts and sped down the path toward the driveway as fast as her small ribbon-laced slippers would carry her.

The  dark  cedars  on  either  side  of the graveled drive met in an arch overhead, turning the long avenue into a dim tunnel. As soon as she was
beneath the gnarled arms of the cedars, she knew she was safe from observation from the house and she slowed her swift pace. She was panting, for
her  stays  were laced too tightly to permit much running, but she walked on as rapidly as she could. Soon she was at the end of the driveway and
out on the main road, but she did not stop until she had rounded a curve that put a large clump of trees between her and the house.

Flushed  and  breathing hard, she sat down on a stump to wait for her father. It was past time for him to come home, but she was glad that he was
late.  The  delay  would  give  her  time  to quiet her breathing and calm her face so that his suspicions would not be aroused. Every moment she
expected  to  hear the pounding of his horse's hooves and see him come charging up the hill at his usual breakneck speed. But the minutes slipped
by and Gerald did not come. She looked down the road for him, the pain in her heart swelling up again.

"Oh, it can't be true!" she thought. "Why doesn't he come?"

Her  eyes  followed  the  winding road, blood-red now after the morning rain. In her thought she traced its course as it ran down the hill to the
sluggish Flint River, through the tangled swampy bottoms and up the next hill to Twelve Oaks where Ashley lived. That was all the road meant now-
-a road to Ashley and the beautiful white-columned house that crowned the hill like a Greek Temple.

"Oh, Ashley! Ashley!" she thought, and her heart beat faster.

Some  of the cold sense of bewilderment and disaster that had weighted her down since the Tarleton boys told her their gossip was pushed into the
background of her mind, and in its place crept the fever that had possessed her for two years.

It  seemed  strange  now that when she was growing up Ashley had never seemed so very attractive to her. In childhood days, she had seen him come
and  go  and  never given him a thought. But since that day two years ago when Ashley, newly home from his three years' Grand Tour in Europe, had
called to pay his respects, she had loved him. It was as simple as that.

She had been on the front porch and he had ridden up the long avenue, dressed in gray broadcloth with a wide black cravat setting off his frilled
shirt  to  perfection.  Even  now,  she could recall each detail of his dress, how brightly his boots shone, the head of a Medusa in cameo on his
cravat  pin,  the wide Panama hat that was instantly in his hand when he saw her. He had alighted and tossed his bridle reins to a pickaninny and
stood  looking  up  at  her,  his drowsy gray eyes wide with a smile and the sun so bright on his blond hair that it seemed like a cap of shining
silver.  And  he  said,  "So you've grown up, Scarlett." And, coming lightly up the steps, he had kissed her hand. And his voice! She would never
forget the leap of her heart as she heard it, as if for the first time, drawling, resonant, musical.

She  had  wanted  him,  in that first instant, wanted him as simply and unreasoningly as she wanted food to eat, horses to ride and a soft bed on
which to lay herself.

For  two  years  he  had squired her about the County, to balls, fish fries, picnics and court days, never so often as the Tarleton twins or Cade
Calvert, never so importunate as the younger Fontaine boys, but, still, never the week went by that Ashley did not come calling at Tara.

True, he never made love to her, nor did the clear gray eyes ever glow with that hot light Scarlett knew so well in other men. And yet--and yet--
she  knew he loved her. She could not be mistaken about it. Instinct stronger than reason and knowledge born of experience told her that he loved
her.  Too  often  she  had  surprised him when his eyes were neither drowsy nor remote, when he looked at her with a yearning and a sadness which
puzzled  her.  She KNEW he loved her. Why did he not tell her so? That she could not understand. But there were so many things about him that she
did not understand.

He  was  courteous  always,  but aloof, remote. No one could ever tell what he was thinking about, Scarlett least of all. In a neighborhood where
everyone  said exactly what he thought as soon as he thought it, Ashley's quality of reserve was exasperating. He was as proficient as any of the
other young men in the usual County diversions, hunting, gambling, dancing and politics, and was the best rider of them all; but he differed from
all the rest in that these pleasant activities were not the end and aim of life to him. And he stood alone in his interest in books and music and
his fondness for writing poetry.

Oh,  why  was  he  so handsomely blond, so courteously aloof, so maddeningly boring with his talk about Europe and books and music and poetry and
things that interested her not at all--and yet so desirable? Night after night, when Scarlett went to bed after sitting on the front porch in the
semi-darkness  with  him,  she  tossed  restlessly  for  hours  and comforted herself only with the thought that the very next time he saw her he
certainly  would  propose.  But the next time came and went, and the result was nothing--nothing except that the fever possessing her rose higher
and hotter.

She loved him and she wanted him and she did not understand him. She was as forthright and simple as the winds that blew over Tara and the yellow
river  that  wound  about  it,  and to the end of her days she would never be able to understand a complexity. And now, for the first time in her
life, she was facing a complex nature.

For  Ashley  was  born  of a line of men who used their leisure for thinking, not doing, for spinning brightly colored dreams that had in them no
touch  of reality. He moved in an inner world that was more beautiful than Georgia and came back to reality with reluctance. He looked on people,
and  he  neither  liked nor disliked them. He looked on life and was neither heartened nor saddened. He accepted the universe and his place in it
for what they were and, shrugging, turned to his music and books and his better world.

Why  he should have captivated Scarlett when his mind was a stranger to hers she did not know. The very mystery of him excited her curiosity like
a  door  that  had neither lock nor key. The things about him which she could not understand only made her love him more, and his odd, restrained
courtship  only  served  to increase her determination to have him for her own. That he would propose some day she had never doubted, for she was
too  young  and  too  spoiled  ever  to  have known defeat. And now, like a thunderclap, had come this horrible news. Ashley to marry Melanie! It
couldn't be true!

Why, only last week, when they were riding home at twilight from Fairhill, he had said: "Scarlett, I have something so important to tell you that
I hardly know how to say it."

She  had cast down her eyes demurely, her heart beating with wild pleasure, thinking the happy moment had come. Then he had said: "Not now! We're
nearly home and there isn't time. Oh, Scarlett, what a coward I am!" And putting spurs to his horse, he had raced her up the hill to Tara.

Scarlett, sitting on the stump, thought of those words which had made her so happy, and suddenly they took on another meaning, a hideous meaning.
Suppose it was the news of his engagement he had intended to tell her!

Oh,  if  Pa would only come home! She could not endure the suspense another moment. She looked impatiently down the road again, and again she was
disappointed.

The  sun  was  now  below  the  horizon  and  the red glow at the rim of the world faded into pink. The sky above turned slowly from azure to the
delicate  blue-green  of  a robin's egg, and the unearthly stillness of rural twilight came stealthily down about her. Shadowy dimness crept over
the  countryside.  The  red  furrows and the gashed red road lost their magical blood color and became plain brown earth. Across the road, in the
pasture,  the horses, mules and cows stood quietly with heads over the split-rail fence, waiting to be driven to the stables and supper. They did
not  like  the  dark  shade  of  the  thickets  hedging  the  pasture creek, and they twitched their ears at Scarlett as if appreciative of human
companionship.

In the strange half-light, the tall pines of the river swamp, so warmly green in the sunshine, were black against the pastel sky, an impenetrable
row  of  black giants hiding the slow yellow water at their feet. On the hill across the river, the tall white chimneys of the Wilkes' home faded
gradually  into  the  darkness  of the thick oaks surrounding them, and only far-off pin points of supper lamps showed that a house was here. The
warm  damp balminess of spring encompassed her sweetly with the moist smells of new-plowed earth and all the fresh green things pushing up to the
air.

Sunset  and  spring  and  new-fledged greenery were no miracle to Scarlett. Their beauty she accepted as casually as the air she breathed and the
water  she drank, for she had never consciously seen beauty in anything but women's faces, horses, silk dresses and like tangible things. Yet the
serene half-light over Tara's well-kept acres brought a measure of quiet to her disturbed mind. She loved this land so much, without even knowing
she loved it, loved it as she loved her mother's face under the lamp at prayer time.

Still  there  was  no  sign  of Gerald on the quiet winding road. If she had to wait much longer, Mammy would certainly come in search of her and
bully  her into the house. But even as she strained her eyes down the darkening road, she heard a pounding of hooves at the bottom of the pasture
hill and saw the horses and cows scatter in fright. Gerald O'Hara was coming home across country and at top speed.

He  came  up  the hill at a gallop on his thick-barreled, long-legged hunter, appearing in the distance like a boy on a too large horse. His long
white hair standing out behind him, he urged the horse forward with crop and loud cries.

Filled with her own anxieties, she nevertheless watched him with affectionate pride, for Gerald was an excellent horseman.

"I  wonder  why he always wants to jump fences when he's had a few drinks," she thought. "And after that fall he had right here last year when he
broke his knee. You'd think he'd learn. Especially when he promised Mother on oath he'd never jump again."

Scarlett  had  no awe of her father and felt him more her contemporary than her sisters, for jumping fences and keeping it a secret from his wife
gave him a boyish pride and guilty glee that matched her own pleasure in outwitting Mammy. She rose from her seat to watch him.

The big horse reached the fence, gathered himself and soared over as effortlessly as a bird, his rider yelling enthusiastically, his crop beating
the  air,  his  white  curls  jerking  out  behind him. Gerald did not see his daughter in the shadow of the trees, and he drew rein in the road,
patting his horse's neck with approbation.

"There's  none  in  the County can touch you, nor in the state," he informed his mount, with pride, the brogue of County Meath still heavy on his
tongue in spite of thirty-nine years in America. Then he hastily set about smoothing his hair and settling his ruffled shirt and his cravat which
had slipped awry behind one ear. Scarlett knew these hurried preenings were being made with an eye toward meeting his wife with the appearance of
a gentleman who had ridden sedately home from a call on a neighbor. She knew also that he was presenting her with just the opportunity she wanted
for opening the conversation without revealing her true purpose.

She  laughed aloud. As she had intended, Gerald was startled by the sound; then he recognized her, and a look both sheepish and defiant came over
his florid face. He dismounted with difficulty, because his knee was stiff, and, slipping the reins over his arm, stumped toward her.

"Well,  Missy," he said, pinching her cheek, "so, you've been spying on me and, like your sister Suellen last week, you'll be telling your mother
on me?"

There  was  indignation  in  his  hoarse bass voice but also a wheedling note, and Scarlett teasingly clicked her tongue against her teeth as she
reached  out  to  pull  his  cravat  into  place.  His  breath in her face was strong with Bourbon whisky mingled with a faint fragrance of mint.
Accompanying  him  also were the smells of chewing tobacco, well-oiled leather and horses--a combination of odors that she always associated with
her father and instinctively liked in other men.

"No, Pa, I'm no tattletale like Suellen," she assured him, standing off to view his rearranged attire with a judicious air.

Gerald was a small man, little more than five feet tall, but so heavy of barrel and thick of neck that his appearance, when seated, led strangers
to  think  him  a  larger  man.  His thickset torso was supported by short sturdy legs, always incased in the finest leather boots procurable and
always  planted wide apart like a swaggering small boy's. Most small people who take themselves seriously are a little ridiculous; but the bantam
cock  is  respected  in  the  barnyard,  and so it was with Gerald. No one would ever have the temerity to think of Gerald O'Hara as a ridiculous
little figure.

He  was  sixty years old and his crisp curly hair was silver-white, but his shrewd face was unlined and his hard little blue eyes were young with
the  unworried youthfulness of one who has never taxed his brain with problems more abstract than how many cards to draw in a poker game. His was
as  Irish  a  face  as  could  be found in the length and breadth of the homeland he had left so long ago--round, high colored, short nosed, wide
mouthed and belligerent.

Beneath  his  choleric  exterior Gerald O'Hara had the tenderest of hearts. He could not bear to see a slave pouting under a reprimand, no matter
how  well  deserved, or hear a kitten mewing or a child crying; but he had a horror of having this weakness discovered. That everyone who met him
did discover his kindly heart within five minutes was unknown to him; and his vanity would have suffered tremendously if he had found it out, for
he  liked  to  think  that when he bawled orders at the top of his voice everyone trembled and obeyed. It had never occurred to him that only one
voice  was  obeyed on the plantation--the soft voice of his wife Ellen. It was a secret he would never learn, for everyone from Ellen down to the
stupidest field hand was in a tacit and kindly conspiracy to keep him believing that his word was law.

Scarlett  was  impressed less than anyone else by his tempers and his roarings. She was his oldest child and, now that Gerald knew there would be
no  more  sons to follow the three who lay in the family burying ground, he had drifted into a habit of treating her in a man-to-man manner which
she  found  most pleasant. She was more like her father than her younger sisters, for Carreen, who had been born Caroline Irene, was delicate and
dreamy, and Suellen, christened Susan Elinor, prided herself on her elegance and ladylike deportment.

Moreover, Scarlett and her father were bound together by a mutual suppression agreement. If Gerald caught her climbing a fence instead of walking
half  a  mile  to  a  gate,  or  sitting too late on the front steps with a beau, he castigated her personally and with vehemence, but he did not
mention the fact to Ellen or to Mammy. And when Scarlett discovered him jumping fences after his solemn promise to his wife, or learned the exact
amount  of  his losses at poker, as she always did from County gossip, she refrained from mentioning the fact at the supper table in the artfully
artless  manner  Suellen  had. Scarlett and her father each assured the other solemnly that to bring such matters to the ears of Ellen would only
hurt her, and nothing would induce them to wound her gentleness.

Scarlett  looked  at her father in the fading light, and, without knowing why, she found it comforting to be in his presence. There was something
vital  and  earthy  and  coarse about him that appealed to her. Being the least analytic of people, she did not realize that this was because she
possessed in some degree these same qualities, despite sixteen years of effort on the part of Ellen and Mammy to obliterate them.

"You  look  very presentable now," she said, "and I don't think anyone will suspect you've been up to your tricks unless you brag about them. But
it does seem to me that after you broke your knee last year, jumping that same fence--"

"Well, may I be damned if I'll have me own daughter telling me what I shall jump and not jump," he shouted, giving her cheek another pinch. "It's
me own neck, so it is. And besides, Missy, what are you doing out here without your shawl?"

Seeing  that  he was employing familiar maneuvers to extricate himself from unpleasant conversation, she slipped her arm through his and said: "I
was waiting for you. I didn't know you would be so late. I just wondered if you had bought Dilcey."

"Bought  her  I did, and the price has ruined me. Bought her and her little wench, Prissy. John Wilkes was for almost giving them away, but never
will I have it said that Gerald O'Hara used friendship in a trade. I made him take three thousand for the two of them."

"In the name of Heaven, Pa, three thousand! And you didn't need to buy Prissy!"

"Has the time come when me own daughters sit in judgment on me?" shouted Gerald rhetorically. "Prissy is a likely little wench and so--"

"I  know her. She's a sly, stupid creature," Scarlett rejoined calmly, unimpressed by his uproar. "And the only reason you bought her was because
Dilcey asked you to buy her."

Gerald looked crestfallen and embarrassed, as always when caught in a kind deed, and Scarlett laughed outright at his transparency.

"Well,  what  if  I  did?  Was there any use buying Dilcey if she was going to mope about the child? Well, never again will I let a darky on this
place marry off it. It's too expensive. Well, come on, Puss, let's go in to supper."

The  shadows  were  falling  thicker now, the last greenish tinge had left the sky and a slight chill was displacing the balminess of spring. But
Scarlett  loitered,  wondering  how  to  bring  up the subject of Ashley without permitting Gerald to suspect her motive. This was difficult, for
Scarlett  had  not  a  subtle  bone  in  her body; and Gerald was so much like her he never failed to penetrate her weak subterfuges, even as she
penetrated his. And he was seldom tactful in doing it.

"How are they all over at Twelve Oaks?"

"About  as usual. Cade Calvert was there and, after I settled about Dilcey, we all set on the gallery and had several toddies. Cade has just come
from Atlanta, and it's all upset they are there and talking war and--"

Scarlett  sighed.  If Gerald once got on the subject of war and secession, it would be hours before he relinquished it. She broke in with another
line.

"Did they say anything about the barbecue tomorrow?"

"Now  that I think of it they did. Miss--what's-her-name--the sweet little thing who was here last year, you know, Ashley's cousin--oh, yes, Miss
Melanie Hamilton, that's the name--she and her brother Charles have already come from Atlanta and--"

"Oh, so she did come?"

"She  did,  and  a  sweet  quiet  thing she is, with never a word to say for herself, like a woman should be. Come now, daughter, don't lag. Your
mother will be hunting for us."

Scarlett's  heart  sank at the news. She had hoped against hope that something would keep Melanie Hamilton in Atlanta where she belonged, and the
knowledge that even her father approved of her sweet quiet nature, so different from her own, forced her into the open.

"Was Ashley there, too?"

"He was." Gerald let go of his daughter's arm and turned, peering sharply into her face. "And if that's why you came out here to wait for me, why
didn't you say so without beating around the bush?"

Scarlett could think of nothing to say, and she felt her face growing red with annoyance.

"Well, speak up."

Still she said nothing, wishing that it was permissible to shake one's father and tell him to hush his mouth.

"He was there and he asked most kindly after you, as did his sisters, and said they hoped nothing would keep you from the barbecue tomorrow. I'll
warrant nothing will," he said shrewdly. "And now, daughter, what's all this about you and Ashley?"

"There is nothing," she said shortly, tugging at his arm. "Let's go in, Pa."

"So  now  'tis  you wanting to go in," he observed. "But here I'm going to stand till I'm understanding you. Now that I think of it, 'tis strange
you've been recently. Has he been trifling with you? Has he asked to marry you?"

"No," she said shortly.

"Nor will he," said Gerald.

Fury flamed in her, but Gerald waved her quiet with a hand.

"Hold  your  tongue,  Miss!  I had it from John Wilkes this afternoon in the strictest confidence that Ashley's to marry Miss Melanie. It's to be
announced tomorrow."

Scarlett's hand fell from his arm. So it was true!

A  pain  slashed at her heart as savagely as a wild animal's fangs. Through it all, she felt her father's eyes on her, a little pitying, a little
annoyed  at  being  faced  with  a  problem for which he knew no answer. He loved Scarlett, but it made him uncomfortable to have her forcing her
childish problems on him for a solution. Ellen knew all the answers. Scarlett should have taken her troubles to her.

"Is  it a spectacle you've been making of yourself--of all of us?" he bawled, his voice rising as always in moments of excitement. "Have you been
running after a man who's not in love with you, when you could have any of the bucks in the County?"

Anger and hurt pride drove out some of the pain.

"I haven't been running after him. It--it just surprised me."

"It's  lying  you  are!"  said Gerald, and then, peering at her stricken face, he added in a burst of kindliness: "I'm sorry, daughter. But after
all, you are nothing but a child and there's lots of other beaux."

"Mother was only fifteen when she married you, and I'm sixteen," said Scarlett, her voice muffled.

"Your  mother  was  different,"  said Gerald. "She was never flighty like you. Now come, daughter, cheer up, and I'll take you to Charleston next
week to visit your Aunt Eulalie and, what with all the hullabaloo they are having over there about Fort Sumter, you'll be forgetting about Ashley
in a week."

"He thinks I'm a child," thought Scarlett, grief and anger choking utterance, "and he's only got to dangle a new toy and I'll forget my bumps."

"Now,  don't  be  jerking  your  chin at me," warned Gerald. "If you had any sense you'd have married Stuart or Brent Tarleton long ago. Think it
over, daughter. Marry one of the twins and then the plantations will run together and Jim Tarleton and I will build you a fine house, right where
they join, in that big pine grove and--"

"Will  you  stop  treating me like a child!" cried Scarlett. "I don't want to go to Charleston or have a house or marry the twins. I only want--"
She caught herself but not in time.

Gerald's voice was strangely quiet and he spoke slowly as if drawing his words from a store of thought seldom used.

"It's  only  Ashley you're wanting, and you'll not be having him. And if he wanted to marry you, 'twould be with misgivings that I'd say Yes, for
all  the  fine  friendship  that's  between me and John Wilkes." And, seeing her startled look, he continued: "I want my girl to be happy and you
wouldn't be happy with him."

"Oh, I would! I would!"

"That you would not, daughter. Only when like marries like can there be any happiness."

Scarlett had a sudden treacherous desire to cry out, "But you've been happy, and you and Mother aren't alike," but she repressed it, fearing that
he would box her ears for her impertinence.

"Our  people and the Wilkes are different," he went on slowly, fumbling for words. "The Wilkes are different from any of our neighbors--different
from any family I ever knew. They are queer folk, and it's best that they marry their cousins and keep their queerness to themselves."

"Why, Pa, Ashley is not--"

"Hold your whist, Puss! I said nothing against the lad, for I like him. And when I say queer, it's not crazy I'm meaning. He's not queer like the
Calverts  who'd gamble everything they have on a horse, or the Tarletons who turn out a drunkard or two in every litter, or the Fontaines who are
hot-headed  little brutes and after murdering a man for a fancied slight. That kind of queerness is easy to understand, for sure, and but for the
grace of God Gerald O'Hara would be having all those faults! And I don't mean that Ashley would run off with another woman, if you were his wife,
or beat you. You'd be happier if he did, for at least you'd be understanding that. But he's queer in other ways, and there's no understanding him
at  all.  I  like him, but it's neither heads nor tails I can make of most he says. Now, Puss, tell me true, do you understand his folderol about
books and poetry and music and oil paintings and such foolishness?"

"Oh, Pa," cried Scarlett impatiently, "if I married him, I'd change all that!"

"Oh,  you  would,  would you now?" said Gerald testily, shooting a sharp look at her. "Then it's little enough you are knowing of any man living,
let  alone  Ashley. No wife has ever changed a husband one whit, and don't you be forgetting that. And as for changing a Wilkes--God's nightgown,
daughter!  The  whole  family is that way, and they've always been that way. And probably always will. I tell you they're born queer. Look at the
way  they  go  tearing up to New York and Boston to hear operas and see oil paintings. And ordering French and German books by the crate from the
Yankees!  And there they sit reading and dreaming the dear God knows what, when they'd be better spending their time hunting and playing poker as
proper men should."

"There's  nobody in the County sits a horse better than Ashley," said Scarlett, furious at the slur of effeminacy flung on Ashley, "nobody except
maybe his father. And as for poker, didn't Ashley take two hundred dollars away from you just last week in Jonesboro?"

"The  Calvert  boys  have  been blabbing again," Gerald said resignedly, "else you'd not be knowing the amount. Ashley can ride with the best and
play  poker  with the best--that's me, Puss! And I'm not denying that when he sets out to drink he can put even the Tarletons under the table. He
can do all those things, but his heart's not in it. That's why I say he's queer."

Scarlett was silent and her heart sank. She could think of no defense for this last, for she knew Gerald was right. Ashley's heart was in none of
the pleasant things he did so well. He was never more than politely interested in any of the things that vitally interested every one else.

Rightly interpreting her silence, Gerald patted her arm and said triumphantly: "There now, Scarlett! You admit 'tis true. What would you be doing
with  a  husband  like Ashley? 'Tis moonstruck they all are, all the Wilkes." And then, in a wheedling tone: "When I was mentioning the Tarletons
the  while ago, I wasn't pushing them. They're fine lads, but if it's Cade Calvert you're setting your cap after, why, 'tis the same with me. The
Calverts  are  good folk, all of them, for all the old man marrying a Yankee. And when I'm gone--Whist, darlin', listen to me! I'll leave Tara to
you and Cade--"

"I  wouldn't  have  Cade  on  a  silver  tray,"  cried  Scarlett  in fury. "And I wish you'd quit pushing him at me! I don't want Tara or any old
plantation. Plantations don't amount to anything when--"

She  was  going to say "when you haven't the man you want," but Gerald, incensed by the cavalier way in which she treated his proffered gift, the
thing which, next to Ellen, he loved best in the whole world uttered a roar.

"Do you stand there, Scarlett O'Hara, and tell me that Tara--that land--doesn't amount to anything?"

Scarlett nodded obstinately. Her heart was too sore to care whether or not she put her father in a temper.

"Land  is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything," he shouted, his thick, short arms making wide gestures of indignation, "for 'tis
the  only  thing in this world that lasts, and don't you be forgetting it! 'Tis the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for--worth dying
for."

"Oh, Pa," she said disgustedly, "you talk like an Irishman!"

"Have  I  ever been ashamed of it? No, 'tis proud I am. And don't be forgetting that you are half Irish, Miss! And to anyone with a drop of Irish
blood in them the land they live on is like their mother. 'Tis ashamed of you I am this minute. I offer you the most beautiful land in the world-
-saving County Meath in the Old Country--and what do you do? You sniff!"

Gerald had begun to work himself up into a pleasurable shouting rage when something in Scarlett's woebegone face stopped him.

"But  there,  you're  young.  'Twill  come  to  you, this love of land. There's no getting away from it, if you're Irish. You're just a child and
bothered  about your beaux. When you're older, you'll be seeing how 'tis. . . . Now, do you be making up your mind about Cade or the twins or one
of Evan Munroe's young bucks, and see how fine I turn you out!"

"Oh, Pa!"

By  this  time,  Gerald  was  thoroughly  tired of the conversation and thoroughly annoyed that the problem should be upon his shoulders. He felt
aggrieved,  moreover,  that  Scarlett  should still look desolate after being offered the best of the County boys and Tara, too. Gerald liked his
gifts to be received with clapping of hands and kisses.

"Now,  none of your pouts, Miss. It doesn't matter who you marry, as long as he thinks like you and is a gentleman and a Southerner and prideful.
For a woman, love comes after marriage."

"Oh, Pa, that's such an Old Country notion!"

"And  a  good  notion  it is! All this American business of running around marrying for love, like servants, like Yankees! The best marriages are
when  the  parents choose for the girl. For how can a silly piece like yourself tell a good man from a scoundrel? Now, look at the Wilkes. What's
kept them prideful and strong all these generations? Why, marrying the likes of themselves, marrying the cousins their family always expects them
to marry."

"Oh," cried Scarlett, fresh pain striking her as Gerald's words brought home the terrible inevitability of the truth.

Gerald looked at her bowed head and shuffled his feet uneasily.

"It's not crying you are?" he questioned, fumbling clumsily at her chin, trying to turn her face upward, his own face furrowed with pity.

"No," she cried vehemently, jerking away.

"It's  lying you are, and I'm proud of it. I'm glad there's pride in you, Puss. And I want to see pride in you tomorrow at the barbecue. I'll not
be having the County gossiping and laughing at you for mooning your heart out about a man who never gave you a thought beyond friendship."

"He  did  give  me a thought," thought Scarlett, sorrowfully in her heart. "Oh, a lot of thoughts! I know he did. I could tell. If I'd just had a
little longer, I know I could have made him say--Oh, if it only wasn't that the Wilkes always feel that they have to marry their cousins!"

Gerald took her arm and passed it through his.

"We'll  be  going  in  to  supper now, and all this is between us. I'll not be worrying your mother with this--nor do you do it either. Blow your
nose, daughter."

Scarlett  blew  her  nose  on  her  torn handkerchief, and they started up the dark drive arm in arm, the horse following slowly. Near the house,
Scarlett  was  at  the point of speaking again when she saw her mother in the dim shadows of the porch. She had on her bonnet, shawl and mittens,
and  behind  her  was  Mammy,  her  face  like a thundercloud, holding in her hand the black leather bag in which Ellen O'Hara always carried the
bandages  and medicines she used in doctoring the slaves. Mammy's lips were large and pendulous and, when indignant, she could push out her lower
one to twice its normal length. It was pushed out now, and Scarlett knew that Mammy was seething over something of which she did not approve.

"Mr.  O'Hara,"  called Ellen as she saw the two coming up the driveway--Ellen belonged to a generation that was formal even after seventeen years
of wedlock and the bearing of six children--"Mr. O'Hara, there is illness at the Slattery house. Emmie's baby has been born and is dying and must
be baptized. I am going there with Mammy to see what I can do."

Her voice was raised questioningly, as though she hung on Gerald's assent to her plan, a mere formality but one dear to the heart of Gerald.

"In  the  name  of God!" blustered Gerald. "Why should those white trash take you away just at your supper hour and just when I'm wanting to tell
you  about the war talk that's going on in Atlanta! Go, Mrs. O'Hara. You'd not rest easy on your pillow the night if there was trouble abroad and
you not there to help."

"She  doan  never  git no res' on her piller fer hoppin' up at night time nursin' niggers an po' w'ite trash dat could ten' to deyseff," grumbled
Mammy in a monotone as she went down the stairs toward the carriage which was waiting in the side drive.

"Take my place at the table, dear," said Ellen, patting Scarlett's cheek softly with a mittened hand.

In  spite  of  her choked-back tears, Scarlett thrilled to the never-failing magic of her mother's touch, to the faint fragrance of lemon verbena
sachet  that  came  from  her rustling silk dress. To Scarlett, there was something breath-taking about Ellen O'Hara, a miracle that lived in the
house with her and awed her and charmed and soothed her.

Gerald  helped  his  wife  into the carriage and gave orders to the coachman to drive carefully. Toby, who had handled Gerald's horses for twenty
years,  pushed  out  his  lips  in mute indignation at being told how to conduct his own business. Driving off, with Mammy beside him, each was a
perfect picture of pouting African disapproval.

"If  I  didn't  do  so  much for those trashy Slatterys that they'd have to pay money for elsewhere," fumed Gerald, "they'd be willing to sell me
their  miserable few acres of swamp bottom, and the County would be well rid of them." Then, brightening, in anticipation of one of his practical
jokes: "Come daughter, let's go tell Pork that instead of buying Dilcey, I've sold him to John Wilkes."

He tossed the reins of his horse to a small pickaninny standing near and started up the steps. He had already forgotten Scarlett's heartbreak and
his  mind  was  only  on  plaguing his valet. Scarlett slowly climbed the steps after him, her feet leaden. She thought that, after all, a mating
between  herself  and  Ashley  could  be  no  queerer  than  that of her father and Ellen Robillard O'Hara. As always, she wondered how her loud,
insensitive father had managed to marry a woman like her mother, for never were two people further apart in birth, breeding and habits of mind.



CHAPTER III


Ellen  O'Hara  was  thirty-two years old, and, according to the standards of her day, she was a middle-aged woman, one who had borne six children
and  buried three. She was a tall woman, standing a head higher than her fiery little husband, but she moved with such quiet grace in her swaying
hoops that the height attracted no attention to itself. Her neck, rising from the black taffeta sheath of her basque, was creamy-skinned, rounded
and  slender,  and  it  seemed  always  tilted slightly backward by the weight of her luxuriant hair in its net at the back of her head. From her
French  mother,  whose  parents had fled Haiti in the Revolution of 1791, had come her slanting dark eyes, shadowed by inky lashes, and her black
hair;  and  from her father, a soldier of Napoleon, she had her long straight nose and her square-cut jaw that was softened by the gentle curving
of  her  cheeks.  But only from life could Ellen's face have acquired its look of pride that had no haughtiness, its graciousness, its melancholy
and its utter lack of humor.

She  would  have  been a strikingly beautiful woman had there been any glow in her eyes, any responsive warmth in her smile or any spontaneity in
her  voice that fell with gentle melody on the ears of her family and her servants. She spoke in the soft slurring voice of the coastal Georgian,
liquid  of  vowels, kind to consonants and with the barest trace of French accent. It was a voice never raised in command to a servant or reproof
to a child but a voice that was obeyed instantly at Tara, where her husband's blustering and roaring were quietly disregarded.

As  far  back  as Scarlett could remember, her mother had always been the same, her voice soft and sweet whether in praising or in reproving, her
manner  efficient  and unruffled despite the daily emergencies of Gerald's turbulent household, her spirit always calm and her back unbowed, even
in  the  deaths  of her three baby sons. Scarlett had never seen her mother's back touch the back of any chair on which she sat. Nor had she ever
seen  her  sit down without a bit of needlework in her hands, except at mealtime, while attending the sick or while working at the bookkeeping of
the  plantation. It was delicate embroidery if company were present, but at other times her hands were occupied with Gerald's ruffled shirts, the
girls'  dresses  or  garments  for  the  slaves.  Scarlett  could  not imagine her mother's hands without her gold thimble or her rustling figure
unaccompanied  by  the  small negro girl whose sole function in life was to remove basting threads and carry the rosewood sewing box from room to
room, as Ellen moved about the house superintending the cooking, the cleaning and the wholesale clothes-making for the plantation.

She  had never seen her mother stirred from her austere placidity, nor her personal appointments anything but perfect, no matter what the hour of
day  or  night.  When Ellen was dressing for a ball or for guests or even to go to Jonesboro for Court Day, it frequently required two hours, two
maids and Mammy to turn her out to her own satisfaction; but her swift toilets in times of emergency were amazing.

Scarlett,  whose room lay across the hall from her mother's, knew from babyhood the soft sound of scurrying bare black feet on the hardwood floor
in the hours of dawn, the urgent tappings on her mother's door, and the muffled, frightened negro voices that whispered of sickness and birth and
death  in the long row of whitewashed cabins in the quarters. As a child, she often had crept to the door and, peeping through the tiniest crack,
had  seen Ellen emerge from the dark room, where Gerald's snores were rhythmic and untroubled, into the flickering light of an upheld candle, her
medicine case under her arm, her hair smoothed neatly place, and no button on her basque unlooped.

It  had  always  been so soothing to Scarlett to hear her mother whisper, firmly but compassionately, as she tiptoed down the hall: "Hush, not so
loudly. You will wake Mr. O'Hara. They are not sick enough to die."

Yes, it was good to creep back into bed and know that Ellen was abroad in the night and everything was right.

In the mornings, after all-night sessions at births and deaths, when old Dr. Fontaine and young Dr. Fontaine were both out on calls and could not
be  found  to  help  her, Ellen presided at the breakfast table as usual, her dark eyes circled with weariness but her voice and manner revealing
none of the strain. There was a steely quality under her stately gentleness that awed the whole household, Gerald as well as the girls, though he
would have died rather than admit it.

Sometimes  when Scarlett tiptoed at night to kiss her tall mother's cheek, she looked up at the mouth with its too short, too tender upper lip, a
mouth  too  easily  hurt  by  the world, and wondered if it had ever curved in silly girlish giggling or whispered secrets through long nights to
intimate  girl  friends.  But  no, that wasn't possible. Mother had always been just as she was, a pillar of strength, a fount of wisdom, the one
person who knew the answers to everything.

But  Scarlett  was  wrong,  for,  years  before, Ellen Robillard of Savannah had giggled as inexplicably as any fifteen-year-old in that charming
coastal  city  and  whispered  the  long nights through with friends, exchanging confidences, telling all secrets but one. That was the year when
Gerald  O'Hara,  twenty-eight  years older than she, came into her life--the year, too, when youth and her black-eyed cousin, Philippe Robillard,
went out of it. For when Philippe, with his snapping eyes and his wild ways, left Savannah forever, he took with him the glow that was in Ellen's
heart and left for the bandy-legged little Irishman who married her only a gentle shell.

But that was enough for Gerald, overwhelmed at his unbelievable luck in actually marrying her. And if anything was gone from her, he never missed
it.  Shrewd  man that he was, he knew that it was no less than a miracle that he, an Irishman with nothing of family and wealth to recommend him,
should win the daughter of one of the wealthiest and proudest families on the Coast. For Gerald was a self-made man.



Gerald  had  come to America from Ireland when he was twenty-one. He had come hastily, as many a better and worse Irishman before and since, with
the clothes he had on his back, two shillings above his passage money and a price on his head that he felt was larger than his misdeed warranted.
There  was no Orangeman this side of hell worth a hundred pounds to the British government or to the devil himself; but if the government felt so
strongly about the death of an English absentee landlord's rent agent, it was time for Gerald O'Hara to be leaving and leaving suddenly. True, he
had  called  the  rent agent "a bastard of an Orangeman," but that, according to Gerald's way of looking at it, did not give the man any right to
insult him by whistling the opening bars of "The Boyne Water."

The  Battle  of the Boyne had been fought more than a hundred years before, but, to the O'Haras and their neighbors, it might have been yesterday
when  their hopes and their dreams, as well as their lands and wealth, went off in the same cloud of dust that enveloped a frightened and fleeing
Stuart prince, leaving William of Orange and his hated troops with their orange cockades to cut down the Irish adherents of the Stuarts.

For  this  and other reasons, Gerald's family was not inclined to view the fatal outcome of this quarrel as anything very serious, except for the
fact  that  it  was  charged  with  serious consequences. For years, the O'Haras had been in bad odor with the English constabulary on account of
suspected  activities  against the government, and Gerald was not the first O'Hara to take his foot in his hand and quit Ireland between dawn and
morning. His two oldest brothers, James and Andrew, he hardly remembered, save as close-lipped youths who came and went at odd hours of the night
on  mysterious  errands  or  disappeared for weeks at a time, to their mother's gnawing anxiety. They had come to America years before, after the
discovery of a small arsenal of rifles buried under the O'Hara pigsty. Now they were successful merchants in Savannah, "though the dear God alone
knows  where  that  may  be," as their mother always interpolated when mentioning the two oldest of her male brood, and it was to them that young
Gerald was sent.

He  left  home  with  his  mother's  hasty  kiss on his cheek and her fervent Catholic blessing in his ears, and his father's parting admonition,
"Remember  who  ye  are  and  don't be taking nothing off no man." His five tall brothers gave him good-by with admiring but slightly patronizing
smiles, for Gerald was the baby and the little one of a brawny family.

His  five  brothers  and their father stood six feet and over and broad in proportion, but little Gerald, at twenty-one, knew that five feet four
and  a  half  inches was as much as the Lord in His wisdom was going to allow him. It was like Gerald that he never wasted regrets on his lack of
height  and  never found it an obstacle to his acquisition of anything he wanted. Rather, it was Gerald's compact smallness that made him what he
was, for he had learned early that little people must be hardy to survive among large ones. And Gerald was hardy.

His  tall  brothers were a grim, quiet lot, in whom the family tradition of past glories, lost forever, rankled in unspoken hate and crackled out
in  bitter  humor.  Had Gerald been brawny, he would have gone the way of the other O'Haras and moved quietly and darkly among the rebels against
the  government.  But Gerald was "loud-mouthed and bullheaded," as his mother fondly phrased it, hair trigger of temper, quick with his fists and
possessed  of  a  chip  on  his  shoulder so large as to be almost visible to the naked eye. He swaggered among the tall O'Haras like a strutting
bantam  in  a  barnyard  of  giant Cochin roosters, and they loved him, baited him affectionately to hear him roar and hammered on him with their
large fists no more than was necessary to keep a baby brother in his proper place.

If the educational equipment which Gerald brought to America was scant, he did not even know it. Nor would he have cared if he had been told. His
mother  had taught him to read and to write a clear hand. He was adept at ciphering. And there his book knowledge stopped. The only Latin he knew
was  the  responses of the Mass and the only history the manifold wrongs of Ireland. He knew no poetry save that of Moore and no music except the
songs  of  Ireland that had come down through the years. While he entertained the liveliest respect for those who had more book learning than he,
he never felt his own lack. And what need had he of these things in a new country where the most ignorant of bogtrotters had made great fortunes?
in this country which asked only that a man be strong and unafraid of work?

Nor  did  James and Andrew, who took him into their store in Savannah, regret his lack of education. His clear hand, his accurate figures and his
shrewd  ability  in  bargaining  won  their respect, where a knowledge of literature and a fine appreciation of music, had young Gerald possessed
them,  would have moved them to snorts of contempt. America, in the early years of the century, had been kind to the Irish. James and Andrew, who
had  begun  by  hauling  goods  in  covered  wagons  from Savannah to Georgia's inland towns, had prospered into a store of their own, and Gerald
prospered with them.

He  liked  the  South, and he soon became, in his own opinion, a Southerner. There was much about the South--and Southerners--that he would never
comprehend:  but,  with the wholeheartedness that was his nature, he adopted its ideas and customs, as he understood them, for his own--poker and
horse  racing,  red-hot  politics  and  the code duello, States' Rights and damnation to all Yankees, slavery and King Cotton, contempt for white
trash  and  exaggerated  courtesy  to women. He even learned to chew tobacco. There was no need for him to acquire a good head for whisky, he had
been born with one.

But  Gerald  remained  Gerald.  His  habits of living and his ideas changed, but his manners he would not change, even had he been able to change
them.  He admired the drawling elegance of the wealthy rice and cotton planters, who rode into Savannah from their moss-hung kingdoms, mounted on
thoroughbred  horses  and followed by the carriages of their equally elegant ladies and the wagons of their slaves. But Gerald could never attain
elegance.  Their  lazy,  blurred voices fell pleasantly on his ears, but his own brisk brogue clung to his tongue. He liked the casual grace with
which  they  conducted  affairs of importance, risking a fortune, a plantation or a slave on the turn of a card and writing off their losses with
careless  good  humor and no more ado than when they scattered pennies to pickaninnies. But Gerald had known poverty, and he could never learn to
lose  money  with  good  humor  or  good grace. They were a pleasant race, these coastal Georgians, with their soft-voiced, quick rages and their
charming inconsistencies, and Gerald liked them. But there was a brisk and restless vitality about the young Irishman, fresh from a country where
winds  blew  wet  and  chill,  where  misty swamps held no fevers, that set him apart from these indolent gentlefolk of semi-tropical weather and
malarial marshes.

From  them he learned what he found useful, and the rest he dismissed. He found poker the most useful of all Southern customs, poker and a steady
head  for whisky; and it was his natural aptitude for cards and amber liquor that brought to Gerald two of his three most prized possessions, his
valet and his plantation. The other was his wife, and he could only attribute her to the mysterious kindness of God.

The  valet,  Pork  by name, shining black, dignified and trained in all the arts of sartorial elegance, was the result of an all-night poker game
with a planter from St. Simons Island, whose courage in a bluff equaled Gerald's but whose head for New Orleans rum did not. Though Pork's former
owner  later  offered  to  buy him back at twice his value, Gerald obstinately refused, for the possession of his first slave, and that slave the
"best damn valet on the Coast," was the first step upward toward his heart's desire, Gerald wanted to be a slave owner and a landed gentleman.

His  mind  was  made  up that he was not going to spend all of his days, like James and Andrew, in bargaining, or all his nights, by candlelight,
over  long  columns  of  figures.  He felt keenly, as his brothers did not, the social stigma attached to those "in trade." Gerald wanted to be a
planter.  With  the  deep hunger of an Irishman who has been a tenant on the lands his people once had owned and hunted, he wanted to see his own
acres  stretching  green before his eyes. With a ruthless singleness of purpose, he desired his own house, his own plantation, his own horse, his
own  slaves.  And here in this new country, safe from the twin perils of the land he had left--taxation that ate up crops and barns and the ever-
present  threat  of  sudden  confiscation--he  intended  to have them. But having that ambition and bringing it to realization were two different
matters, he discovered as time went by. Coastal Georgia was too firmly held by an entrenched aristocracy for him ever to hope to win the place he
intended to have.

Then the hand of Fate and a hand of poker combined to give him the plantation which he afterwards called Tara, and at the same time moved him out
of the Coast into the upland country of north Georgia.

It  was  in  a  saloon in Savannah, on a hot night in spring, when the chance conversation of a stranger sitting near by made Gerald prick up his
ears.  The stranger, a native of Savannah, had just returned after twelve years in the inland country. He had been one of the winners in the land
lottery  conducted by the State to divide up the vast area in middle Georgia, ceded by the Indians the year before Gerald came to America. He had
gone  up  there and established a plantation; but, now the house had burned down, he was tired of the "accursed place" and would be most happy to
get it off his hands.

Gerald,  his  mind  never  free of the thought of owning a plantation of his own, arranged an introduction, and his interest grew as the stranger
told  how  the  northern  section  of  the state was filling up with newcomers from the Carolinas and Virginia. Gerald had lived in Savannah long
enough  to  acquire  a  viewpoint  of  the  Coast--that  all  of the rest of the state was backwoods, with an Indian lurking in every thicket. In
transacting business for O'Hara Brothers, he had visited Augusta, a hundred miles up the Savannah River, and he had traveled inland far enough to
visit  the  old  towns westward from that city. He knew that section to be as well settled as the Coast, but from the stranger's description, his
plantation  was  more  than two hundred and fifty miles inland from Savannah to the north and west, and not many miles south of the Chattahoochee
River.  Gerald  knew  that  northward  beyond  that  stream  the land was still held by the Cherokees, so it was with amazement that he heard the
stranger  jeer  at  suggestions  of trouble with the Indians and narrate how thriving towns were growing up and plantations prospering in the new
country.

An  hour  later when the conversation began to lag, Gerald, with a guile that belied the wide innocence of his bright blue eyes, proposed a game.
As  the  night  wore  on  and  the  drinks went round, there came a time when all the others in the game laid down their hands and Gerald and the
stranger  were  battling alone. The stranger shoved in all his chips and followed with the deed to his plantation. Gerald shoved in all his chips
and  laid  on  top  of  them his wallet. If the money it contained happened to belong to the firm of O'Hara Brothers, Gerald's conscience was not
sufficiently  troubled  to confess it before Mass the following morning. He knew what he wanted, and when Gerald wanted something he gained it by
taking  the most direct route. Moreover, such was his faith in his destiny and four dueces that he never for a moment wondered just how the money
would be paid back should a higher hand be laid down across the table.

"It's  no  bargain  you're getting and I am glad not to have to pay more taxes on the place," sighed the possessor of an "ace full," as he called
for pen and ink. "The big house burned a year ago and the fields are growing up in brush and seedling pine. But it's yours."

"Never  mix cards and whisky unless you were weaned on Irish poteen," Gerald told Pork gravely the same evening, as Pork assisted him to bed. And
the  valet,  who had begun to attempt a brogue out of admiration for his new master, made requisite answer in a combination of Geechee and County
Meath that would have puzzled anyone except those two alone.

The  muddy  Flint  River, running silently between walls of pine and water oak covered with tangled vines, wrapped about Gerald's new land like a
curving  arm  and  embraced  it  on two sides. To Gerald, standing on the small knoll where the house had been, this tall barrier of green was as
visible  and  pleasing  an  evidence  of ownership as though it were a fence that he himself had built to mark his own. He stood on the blackened
foundation stones of the burned building, looked down the long avenue of trees leading toward the road and swore lustily, with a joy too deep for
thankful prayer. These twin lines of somber trees were his, his the abandoned lawn, waist high in weeds under white-starred young magnolia trees.
The  uncultivated  fields,  studded  with tiny pines and underbrush, that stretched their rolling red-clay surface away into the distance on four
sides belonged to Gerald O'Hara--were all his because he had an unbefuddled Irish head and the courage to stake everything on a hand of cards.

Gerald  closed  his  eyes  and,  in the stillness of the unworked acres, he felt that he had come home. Here under his feet would rise a house of
whitewashed  brick.  Across  the  road  would be new rail fences, inclosing fat cattle and blooded horses, and the red earth that rolled down the
hillside  to the rich river bottom land would gleam white as eiderdown in the sun--cotton, acres and acres of cotton! The fortunes of the O'Haras
would rise again.

With  his own small stake, what he could borrow from his unenthusiastic brothers and a neat sum from mortgaging the land, Gerald bought his first
field  hands  and came to Tara to live in bachelor solitude in the four-room overseer's house, till such a time as the white walls of Tara should
rise.

He  cleared  the  fields  and planted cotton and borrowed more money from James and Andrew to buy more slaves. The O'Haras were a clannish tribe,
clinging to one another in prosperity as well as in adversity, not for any overweening family affection but because they had learned through grim
years that to survive a family must present an unbroken front to the world. They lent Gerald the money and, in the years that followed, the money
came  back  to  them with interest. Gradually the plantation widened out, as Gerald bought more acres lying near him, and in time the white house
became a reality instead of a dream.

It  was  built  by slave labor, a clumsy sprawling building that crowned the rise of ground overlooking the green incline of pasture land running
down to the river; and it pleased Gerald greatly, for, even when new, it wore a look of mellowed years. The old oaks, which had seen Indians pass
under  their limbs, hugged the house closely with their great trunks and towered their branches over the roof in dense shade. The lawn, reclaimed
from  weeds,  grew thick with clover and Bermuda grass, and Gerald saw to it that it was well kept. From the avenue of cedars to the row of white
cabins in the slave quarters, there was an air of solidness, of stability and permanence about Tara, and whenever Gerald galloped around the bend
in the road and saw his own roof rising through green branches, his heart swelled with pride as though each sight of it were the first sight.

He had done it all, little, hard-headed, blustering Gerald.

Gerald  was on excellent terms with all his neighbors in the County, except the MacIntoshes whose land adjoined his on the left and the Slatterys
whose meager three acres stretched on his right along the swamp bottoms between the river and John Wilkes' plantation.

The  MacIntoshes  were Scotch-Irish and Orangemen and, had they possessed all the saintly qualities of the Catholic calendar, this ancestry would
have  damned  them  forever  in  Gerald's eyes. True, they had lived in Georgia for seventy years and, before that, had spent a generation in the
Carolinas; but the first of the family who set foot on American shores had come from Ulster, and that was enough for Gerald.

They were a close-mouthed and stiff-necked family, who kept strictly to themselves and intermarried with their Carolina relatives, and Gerald was
not  alone in disliking them, for the County people were neighborly and sociable and none too tolerant of anyone lacking in those same qualities.
Rumors  of  Abolitionist  sympathies  did  not  enhance  the popularity of the MacIntoshes. Old Angus had never manumitted a single slave and had
committed  the  unpardonable  social breach of selling some of his negroes to passing slave traders en route to the cane fields of Louisiana, but
the rumors persisted.

"He's  an Abolitionist, no doubt," observed Gerald to John Wilkes. "But, in an Orangeman, when a principle comes up against Scotch tightness, the
principle fares ill."

The  Slatterys  were  another affair. Being poor white, they were not even accorded the grudging respect that Angus MacIntosh's dour independence
wrung  from neighboring families. Old Slattery, who clung persistently to his few acres, in spite of repeated offers from Gerald and John Wilkes,
was  shiftless and whining. His wife was a snarly-haired woman, sickly and washed-out of appearance, the mother of a brood of sullen and rabbity-
looking  children--a  brood  which was increased regularly every year. Tom Slattery owned no slaves, and he and his two oldest boys spasmodically
worked their few acres of cotton, while the wife and younger children tended what was supposed to be a vegetable garden. But, somehow, the cotton
always failed, and the garden, due to Mrs. Slattery's constant childbearing, seldom furnished enough to feed her flock.

The  sight  of  Tom  Slattery  dawdling  on his neighbors' porches, begging cotton seed for planting or a side of bacon to "tide him over," was a
familiar  one.  Slattery  hated his neighbors with what little energy he possessed, sensing their contempt beneath their courtesy, and especially
did  he  hate  "rich folks' uppity niggers." The house negroes of the County considered themselves superior to white trash, and their unconcealed
scorn  stung  him,  while  their more secure position in life stirred his envy. By contrast with his own miserable existence, they were well-fed,
well-clothed  and looked after in sickness and old age. They were proud of the good names of their owners and, for the most part, proud to belong
to people who were quality, while he was despised by all.

Tom  Slattery  could  have sold his farm for three times its value to any of the planters in the County. They would have considered it money well
spent to rid the community of an eyesore, but he was well satisfied to remain and to subsist miserably on the proceeds of a bale of cotton a year
and the charity of his neighbors.

With  all  the  rest of the County, Gerald was on terms of amity and some intimacy. The Wilkeses, the Calverts, the Tarletons, the Fontaines, all
smiled  when the small figure on the big white horse galloped up their driveways, smiled and signaled for tall glasses in which a pony of Bourbon
had  been  poured  over a teaspoon of sugar and a sprig of crushed mint. Gerald was likable, and the neighbors learned in time what the children,
negroes  and dogs discovered at first sight, that a kind heart, a ready and sympathetic ear and an open pocketbook lurked just behind his bawling
voice and his truculent manner.

His  arrival was always amid a bedlam of hounds barking and small black children shouting as they raced to meet him, quarreling for the privilege
of  holding  his  horse and squirming and grinning under his good-natured insults. The white children clamored to sit on his knee and be trotted,
while he denounced to their elders the infamy of Yankee politicians; the daughters of his friends took him into their confidence about their love
affairs, and the youths of the neighborhood, fearful of confessing debts of honor upon the carpets of their fathers, found him a friend in need.

"So,  you've  been  owning this for a month, you young rascal!" he would shout. "And, in God's name, why haven't you been asking me for the money
before this?"

His  rough  manner of speech was too well known to give offense, and it only made the young men grin sheepishly and reply: "Well, sir, I hated to
trouble you, and my father--"

"Your father's a good man, and no denying it, but strict, and so take this and let's be hearing no more of it."

The planters' ladies were the last to capitulate. But, when Mrs. Wilkes, "a great lady and with a rare gift for silence," as Gerald characterized
her, told her husband one evening, after Gerald's horse had pounded down the driveway. "He has a rough tongue, but he is a gentleman," Gerald had
definitely arrived.

He  did  not know that he had taken nearly ten years to arrive, for it never occurred to him that his neighbors had eyed him askance at first. In
his own mind, there had never been any doubt that he belonged, from the moment he first set foot on Tara.

When  Gerald was forty-three, so thickset of body and florid of face that he looked like a hunting squire out of a sporting print, it came to him
that Tara, dear though it was, and the County folk, with their open hearts and open houses, were not enough. He wanted a wife.

Tara cried out for a mistress. The fat cook, a yard negro elevated by necessity to the kitchen, never had the meals on time, and the chambermaid,
formerly  a  field  hand,  let  dust  accumulate on the furniture and never seemed to have clean linen on hand, so that the arrival of guests was
always the occasion of much stirring and to-do. Pork, the only trained house negro on the place, had general supervision over the other servants,
but  even  he  had grown slack and careless after several years of exposure to Gerald's happy-go-lucky mode of living. As valet, he kept Gerald's
bedroom in order, and, as butler, he served the meals with dignity and style, but otherwise he pretty well let matters follow their own course.

With  unerring African instinct, the negroes had all discovered that Gerald had a loud bark and no bite at all, and they took shameless advantage
of  him.  The air was always thick with threats of selling slaves south and of direful whippings, but there never had been a slave sold from Tara
and only one whipping, and that administered for not grooming down Gerald's pet horse after a long day's hunting.

Gerald's  sharp  blue  eyes  noticed how efficiently his neighbors' houses were run and with what ease the smooth-haired wives in rustling skirts
managed  their  servants.  He  had  no knowledge of the dawn-till-midnight activities of these women, chained to supervision of cooking, nursing,
sewing and laundering. He only saw the outward results, and those results impressed him.

The  urgent  need  of  a wife became clear to him one morning when he was dressing to ride to town for Court Day. Pork brought forth his favorite
ruffled shirt, so inexpertly mended by the chambermaid as to be unwearable by anyone except his valet.

"Mist'  Gerald,"  said  Pork, gratefully rolling up the shirt as Gerald fumed, "whut you needs is a wife, and a wife whut has got plen'y of house
niggers."

Gerald  upbraided  Pork  for  his impertinence, but he knew that he was right. He wanted a wife and he wanted children and, if he did not acquire
them  soon,  it would be too late. But he was not going to marry just anyone, as Mr. Calvert had done, taking to wife the Yankee governess of his
motherless  children.  His wife must be a lady and a lady of blood, with as many airs and graces as Mrs. Wilkes and the ability to manage Tara as
well as Mrs. Wilkes ordered her own domain.

But  there  were  two  difficulties in the way of marriage into the County families. The first was the scarcity of girls of marriageable age. The
second,  and  more  serious  one, was that Gerald was a "new man," despite his nearly ten years' residence, and a foreigner. No one knew anything
about his family. While the society of up-country Georgia was not so impregnable as that of the Coast aristocrats, no family wanted a daughter to
wed a man about whose grandfather nothing was known.

Gerald  knew that despite the genuine liking of the County men with whom he hunted, drank and talked politics there was hardly one whose daughter
he could marry. And he did not intend to have it gossiped about over supper tables that this, that or the other father had regretfully refused to
let  Gerald  O'Hara  pay court to his daughter. This knowledge did not make Gerald feel inferior to his neighbors. Nothing could ever make Gerald
feel  that  he  was  inferior in any way to anyone. It was merely a quaint custom of the County that daughters only married into families who had
lived in the South much longer than twenty-two years, had owned land and slaves and been addicted only to the fashionable vices during that time.

"Pack  up. We're going to Savannah," he told Pork. "And if I hear you say 'Whist!' or 'Faith!' but once, it's selling you I'll be doing, for they
are words I seldom say meself."

James and Andrew might have some advice to offer on this subject of marriage, and there might be daughters among their old friends who would both
meet  his  requirements  and  find  him  acceptable  as  a  husband.  James  and  Andrew listened to his story patiently but they gave him little
encouragement.  They  had  no Savannah relatives to whom they might look for assistance, for they had been married when they came to America. And
the daughters of their old friends had long since married and were raising small children of their own.

"You're not a rich man and you haven't a great family," said James.

"I've made me money and I can make a great family. And I won't be marrying just anyone."

"You fly high," observed Andrew, dryly.

But  they  did  their best for Gerald. James and Andrew were old men and they stood well in Savannah. They had many friends, and for a month they
carried Gerald from home to home, to suppers, dances and picnics.

"There's only one who takes me eye," Gerald said finally. "And she not even born when I landed here."

"And who is it takes your eye?"

"Miss Ellen Robillard," said Gerald, trying to speak casually, for the slightly tilting dark eyes of Ellen Robillard had taken more than his eye.
Despite  a  mystifying  listlessness  of manner, so strange in a girl of fifteen, she charmed him. Moreover, there was a haunting look of despair
about her that went to his heart and made him more gentle with her than he had ever been with any person in all the world.

"And you old enough to be her father!"

"And me in me prime!" cried Gerald stung.

James spoke gently.

"Jerry, there's no girl in Savannah you'd have less chance of marrying. Her father is a Robillard, and those French are proud as Lucifer. And her
mother--God rest her soul--was a very great lady."

"I care not," said Gerald heatedly. "Besides, her mother is dead, and old man Robillard likes me."

"As a man, yes, but as a son-in-law, no."

"The  girl  wouldn't  have you anyway," interposed Andrew. "She's been in love with that wild buck of a cousin of hers, Philippe Robillard, for a
year now, despite her family being at her morning and night to give him up."

"He's been gone to Louisiana this month now," said Gerald.

"And how do you know?"

"I  know,"  answered  Gerald, who did not care to disclose that Pork had supplied this valuable bit of information, or that Philippe had departed
for  the  West at the express desire of his family. "And I do not think she's been so much in love with him that she won't forget him. Fifteen is
too young to know much about love."

"They'd rather have that breakneck cousin for her than you."

So,  James  and  Andrew  were as startled as anyone when the news came out that the daughter of Pierre Robillard was to marry the little Irishman
from  up  the  country. Savannah buzzed behind its doors and speculated about Philippe Robillard, who had gone West, but the gossiping brought no
answer.  Why  the loveliest of the Robillard daughters should marry a loud-voiced, red-faced little man who came hardly up to her ears remained a
mystery to all.

Gerald himself never quite knew how it all came about. He only knew that a miracle had happened. And, for once in his life, he was utterly humble
when Ellen, very white but very calm, put a light hand on his arm and said: "I will marry you, Mr. O'Hara."

The  thunderstruck  Robillards  knew the answer in part, but only Ellen and her mammy ever knew the whole story of the night when the girl sobbed
till the dawn like a broken-hearted child and rose up in the morning a woman with her mind made up.

With  foreboding,  Mammy  had  brought  her  young mistress a small package, addressed in a strange hand from New Orleans, a package containing a
miniature of Ellen, which she flung to the floor with a cry, four letters in her own handwriting to Philippe Robillard, and a brief letter from a
New Orleans priest, announcing the death of her cousin in a barroom brawl.

"They  drove  him away, Father and Pauline and Eulalie. They drove him away. I hate them. I hate them all. I never want to see them again. I want
to get away. I will go away where I'll never see them again, or this town, or anyone who reminds me of--of--him."

And when the night was nearly spent, Mammy, who had cried herself out over her mistress' dark head, protested, "But, honey, you kain do dat!"

"I will do it. He is a kind man. I will do it or go into the convent at Charleston."

It  was  the  threat  of the convent that finally won the assent of bewildered and heartstricken Pierre Robillard. He was staunchly Presbyterian,
even  though  his  family  were  Catholic, and the thought of his daughter becoming a nun was even worse than that of her marrying Gerald O'Hara.
After all, the man had nothing against him but a lack of family.

So,  Ellen,  no  longer  Robillard,  turned her back on Savannah, never to see it again, and with a middle-aged husband, Mammy, and twenty "house
niggers" journeyed toward Tara.

The  next year, their first child was born and they named her Katie Scarlett, after Gerald's mother. Gerald was disappointed, for he had wanted a
son,  but  he  nevertheless  was  pleased  enough  over his small black-haired daughter to serve rum to every slave at Tara and to get roaringly,
happily drunk himself.

If  Ellen had ever regretted her sudden decision to marry him, no one ever knew it, certainly not Gerald, who almost burst with pride whenever he
looked  at  her. She had put Savannah and its memories behind her when she left that gently mannered city by the sea, and, from the moment of her
arrival in the County, north Georgia was her home.

When  she departed from her father's house forever, she had left a home whose lines were as beautiful and flowing as a woman's body, as a ship in
full  sail;  a  pale  pink  stucco  house built in the French colonial style, set high from the ground in a dainty manner, approached by swirling
stairs, banistered with wrought iron as delicate as lace; a dim, rich house, gracious but aloof.

She  had  left  not  only  that graceful dwelling but also the entire civilization that was behind the building of it, and she found herself in a
world that was as strange and different as if she had crossed a continent.

Here  in  north  Georgia  was  a  rugged  section held by a hardy people. High up on the plateau at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, she saw
rolling  red  hills  wherever  she  looked, with huge outcroppings of the underlying granite and gaunt pines towering somberly everywhere. It all
seemed  wild  and  untamed  to her coast-bred eyes accustomed to the quiet jungle beauty of the sea islands draped in their gray moss and tangled
green, the white stretches of beach hot beneath a semitropic sun, the long flat vistas of sandy land studded with palmetto and palm.

This  was a section that knew the chill of winter, as well as the heat of summer, and there was a vigor and energy in the people that was strange
to  her.  They were a kindly people, courteous, generous, filled with abounding good nature, but sturdy, virile, easy to anger. The people of the
Coast  which  she  had  left  might pride themselves on taking all their affairs, even their duels and their feuds, with a careless air but these
north Georgia people had a streak of violence in them. On the coast, life had mellowed--here it was young and lusty and new.

All  the  people  Ellen had known in Savannah might have been cast from the same mold, so similar were their view points and traditions, but here
was  a variety of people. North Georgia's settlers were coming in from many different places, from other parts of Georgia, from the Carolinas and
Virginia,  from  Europe  and  the North. Some of them, like Gerald, were new people seeking their fortunes. Some, like Ellen, were members of old
families  who  had  found  life intolerable in their former homes and sought haven in a distant land. Many had moved for no reason at all, except
that the restless blood of pioneering fathers still quickened in their veins.

These people, drawn from many different places and with many different backgrounds, gave the whole life of the County an informality that was new
to  Ellen,  an  informality  to  which she never quite accustomed herself. She instinctively knew how Coast people would act in any circumstance.
There was never any telling what north Georgians would do.

And,  quickening  all of the affairs of the section, was the high tide of prosperity then rolling over the South. All of the world was crying out
for cotton, and the new land of the County, unworn and fertile, produced it abundantly. Cotton was the heartbeat of the section, the planting and
the  picking  were  the diastole and systole of the red earth. Wealth came out of the curving furrows, and arrogance came too--arrogance built on
green bushes and the acres of fleecy white. If cotton could make them rich in one generation, how much richer they would be in the next!

This  certainty  of  the  morrow  gave  zest  and enthusiasm to life, and the County people enjoyed life with a heartiness that Ellen could never
understand.  They  had  money enough and slaves enough to give them time to play, and they liked to play. They seemed never too busy to drop work
for a fish fry, a hunt or a horse race, and scarcely a week went by without its barbecue or ball.

Ellen never would, or could, quite become one of them--she had left too much of herself in Savannah--but she respected them and, in time, learned
to admire the frankness and forthrightness of these people, who had few reticences and who valued a man for what he was.

She  became  the  best-loved  neighbor  in  the County. She was a thrifty and kind mistress, a good mother and a devoted wife. The heartbreak and
selflessness  that  she  would  have  dedicated to the Church were devoted instead to the service of her child, her household and the man who had
taken her out of Savannah and its memories and had never asked any questions.

When Scarlett was a year old, and more healthy and vigorous than a girl baby had any right to be, in Mammy's opinion, Ellen's second child, named
Susan  Elinor,  but  always  called  Suellen, was born, and in due time came Carreen, listed in the family Bible as Caroline Irene. Then followed
three  little boys, each of whom died before he had learned to walk--three little boys who now lay under the twisted cedars in the burying ground
a hundred yards from the house, beneath three stones, each bearing the name of "Gerald O'Hara, Jr."

From the day when Ellen first came to Tara, the place had been transformed. If she was only fifteen years old, she was nevertheless ready for the
responsibilities  of  the  mistress  of  a plantation. Before marriage, young girls must be, above all other things, sweet, gentle, beautiful and
ornamental,  but,  after marriage, they were expected to manage households that numbered a hundred people or more, white and black, and they were
trained with that in view.

Ellen had been given this preparation for marriage which any well-brought-up young lady received, and she also had Mammy, who could galvanize the
most  shiftless  negro into energy. She quickly brought order, dignity and grace into Gerald's household, and she gave Tara a beauty it had never
had before.

The  house  had  been  built  according  to no architectural plan whatever, with extra rooms added where and when it seemed convenient, but, with
Ellen's care and attention, it gained a charm that made up for its lack of design. The avenue of cedars leading from the main road to the house--
that  avenue  of  cedars  without  which  no  Georgia  planter's home could be complete--had a cool dark shadiness that gave a brighter tinge, by
contrast,  to  the  green  of the other trees. The wistaria tumbling over the verandas showed bright against the whitewashed brick, and it joined
with the pink crepe myrtle bushes by the door and the white-blossomed magnolias in the yard to disguise some of the awkward lines of the house.

In  spring  time  and  summer,  the Bermuda grass and clover on the lawn became emerald, so enticing an emerald that it presented an irresistible
temptation  to  the  flocks  of  turkeys  and white geese that were supposed to roam only the regions in the rear of the house. The elders of the
flocks  continually  led stealthy advances into the front yard, lured on by the green of the grass and the luscious promise of the cape jessamine
buds  and  the  zinnia  beds. Against their depredations, a small black sentinel was stationed on the front porch. Armed with a ragged towel, the
little negro boy sitting on the steps was part of the picture of Tara--and an unhappy one, for he was forbidden to chunk the fowls and could only
flap the towel at them and shoo them.

Ellen  set  dozens  of little black boys to this task, the first position of responsibility a male slave had at Tara. After they had passed their
tenth  year,  they  were sent to old Daddy the plantation cobbler to learn his trade, or to Amos the wheelwright and carpenter, or Philip the cow
man, or Cuffee the mule boy. If they showed no aptitude for any of these trades, they became field hands and, in the opinion of the negroes, they
had lost their claim to any social standing at all.

Ellen's  life  was  not  easy, nor was it happy, but she did not expect life to be easy, and, if it was not happy, that was woman's lot. It was a
man's  world,  and she accepted it as such. The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took the credit for the management, and
the  woman  praised  his cleverness. The man roared like a bull when a splinter was in his finger, and the woman muffled the moans of childbirth,
lest  she  disturb  him. Men were rough of speech and often drunk. Women ignored the lapses of speech and put the drunkards to bed without bitter
words. Men were rude and outspoken, women were always kind, gracious and forgiving.

She  had  been reared in the tradition of great ladies, which had taught her how to carry her burden and still retain her charm, and she intended
that  her  three  daughters should be great ladies also. With her younger daughters, she had success, for Suellen was so anxious to be attractive
she  lent  an  attentive and obedient ear to her mother's teachings, and Carreen was shy and easily led. But Scarlett, child of Gerald, found the
road to ladyhood hard.

To  Mammy's  indignation,  her  preferred playmates were not her demure sisters or the well-brought-up Wilkes girls but the negro children on the
plantation  and the boys of the neighborhood, and she could climb a tree or throw a rock as well as any of them. Mammy was greatly perturbed that
Ellen's  daughter  should display such traits and frequently adjured her to "ack lak a lil lady." But Ellen took a more tolerant and long-sighted
view  of  the matter. She knew that from childhood playmates grew beaux in later years, and the first duty of a girl was to get married. She told
herself that the child was merely full of life and there was still time in which to teach her the arts and graces of being attractive to men.

To  this  end,  Ellen  and  Mammy bent their efforts, and as Scarlett grew older she became an apt pupil in this subject, even though she learned
little else. Despite a succession of governesses and two years at the near-by Fayetteville Female Academy, her education was sketchy, but no girl
in  the  County  danced more gracefully than she. She knew how to smile so that her dimples leaped, how to walk pigeon-toed so that her wide hoop
skirts  swayed  entrancingly,  how to look up into a man's face and then drop her eyes and bat the lids rapidly so that she seemed a-tremble with
gentle emotion. Most of all she learned how to conceal from men a sharp intelligence beneath a face as sweet and bland as a baby's.

Ellen,  by  soft-voiced admonition, and Mammy, by constant carping, labored to inculcate in her the qualities that would make her truly desirable
as a wife.

"You  must  be more gentle, dear, more sedate," Ellen told her daughter. "You must not interrupt gentlemen when they are speaking, even if you do
think you know more about matters than they do. Gentlemen do not like forward girls."

"Young misses whut frowns an pushes out dey chins an' says 'Ah will' and 'Ah woan' mos' gener'ly doan ketch husbands," prophesied Mammy gloomily.
"Young misses should cas' down dey eyes an' say, 'Well, suh, Ah mout' an' 'Jes' as you say, suh.'"

Between them, they taught her all that a gentlewoman should know, but she learned only the outward signs of gentility. The inner grace from which
these signs should spring, she never learned nor did she see any reason for learning it. Appearances were enough, for the appearances of ladyhood
won her popularity and that was all she wanted. Gerald bragged that she was the belle of five counties, and with some truth, for she had received
proposals from nearly all the young men in the neighborhood and many from places as far away as Atlanta and Savannah.

At  sixteen,  thanks  to Mammy and Ellen, she looked sweet, charming and giddy, but she was, in reality, self-willed, vain and obstinate. She had
the  easily  stirred  passions  of her Irish father and nothing except the thinnest veneer of her mother's unselfish and forbearing nature. Ellen
never  fully  realized  that  it was only a veneer, for Scarlett always showed her best face to her mother, concealing her escapades, curbing her
temper and appearing as sweet-natured as she could in Ellen's presence, for her mother could shame her to tears with a reproachful glance.

But  Mammy  was  under  no  illusions  about  her  and was constantly alert for breaks in the veneer. Mammy's eyes were sharper than Ellen's, and
Scarlett could never recall in all her life having fooled Mammy for long.

It  was  not  that  these two loving mentors deplored Scarlett's high spirits, vivacity and charm. These were traits of which Southern women were
proud. It was Gerald's headstrong and impetuous nature in her that gave them concern, and they sometimes feared they would not be able to conceal
her  damaging  qualities until she had made a good match. But Scarlett intended to marry--and marry Ashley--and she was willing to appear demure,
pliable and scatterbrained, if those were the qualities that attracted men. Just why men should be this way, she did not know. She only knew that
such  methods  worked.  It  never  interested her enough to try to think out the reason for it, for she knew nothing of the inner workings of any
human  being's  mind,  not  even  her own. She knew only that if she did or said thus-and-so, men would unerringly respond with the complementary
thus-and-so.  It was like a mathematical formula and no more difficult, for mathematics was the one subject that had come easy to Scarlett in her
schooldays.

If she knew little about men's minds, she knew even less about the minds of women, for they interested her less. She had never had a girl friend,
and she never felt any lack on that account. To her, all women, including her two sisters, were natural enemies in pursuit of the same prey--man.

All women with the one exception of her mother.

Ellen  O'Hara was different, and Scarlett regarded her as something holy and apart from all the rest of humankind. When Scarlett was a child, she
had  confused  her  mother with the Virgin Mary, and now that she was older she saw no reason for changing her opinion. To her, Ellen represented
the  utter  security  that only Heaven or a mother can give. She knew that her mother was the embodiment of justice, truth, loving tenderness and
profound wisdom--a great lady.

Scarlett  wanted  very  much  to be like her mother. The only difficulty was that by being just and truthful and tender and unselfish, one missed
most  of the joys of life, and certainly many beaux. And life was too short to miss such pleasant things. Some day when she was married to Ashley
and old, some day when she had time for it, she intended to be like Ellen. But, until then . . .



CHAPTER IV


That  night  at supper, Scarlett went through the motions of presiding over the table in her mother's absence, but her mind was in a ferment over
the  dreadful  news she had heard about Ashley and Melanie. Desperately she longed for her mother's return from the Slatterys', for, without her,
she  felt  lost  and  alone. What right had the Slatterys and their everlasting sickness to take Ellen away from home just at this time when she,
Scarlett, needed her so much?

Throughout  the  dismal  meal, Gerald's booming voice battered against her ears until she thought she could endure it no longer. He had forgotten
completely  about  his  conversation  with  her  that  afternoon and was carrying on a monologue about the latest news from Fort Sumter, which he
punctuated  by  hammering  his fist on the table and waving his arms in the air. Gerald made a habit of dominating the conversation at mealtimes,
and  usually  Scarlett,  occupied with her own thoughts, scarcely heard him; but tonight she could not shut out his voice, no matter how much she
strained to listen for the sound of carriage wheels that would herald Ellen's return.

Of  course,  she did not intend to tell her mother what was so heavy on her heart, for Ellen would be shocked and grieved to know that a daughter
of  hers wanted a man who was engaged to another girl. But, in the depths of the first tragedy she had ever known, she wanted the very comfort of
her mother's presence. She always felt secure when Ellen was by her, for there was nothing so bad that Ellen could not better it, simply by being
there.

She rose suddenly from her chair at the sound of creaking wheels in the driveway and then sank down again as they went on around the house to the
back  yard.  It  could not be Ellen, for she would alight at the front steps. Then there was an excited babble of negro voices in the darkness of
the  yard  and  high-pitched  negro  laughter.  Looking  out the window, Scarlett saw Pork, who had left the room a moment before, holding high a
flaring  pine  knot,  while  indistinguishable  figures  descended  from  a  wagon. The laughter and talking rose and fell in the dark night air,
pleasant, homely, carefree sounds, gutturally soft, musically shrill. Then feet shuffled up the back-porch stairs and into the passageway leading
to  the  main  house,  stopping  in  the hall just outside the dining room. There was a brief interval of whispering, and Pork entered, his usual
dignity gone, his eyes rolling and his teeth a-gleam.

"Mist' Gerald," he announced, breathing hard, the pride of a bridegroom all over his shining face, "you' new 'oman done come."

"New woman? I didn't buy any new woman," declared Gerald, pretending to glare.

"Yassah,  you  did,  Mist'  Gerald!  Yassah!  An'  she out hyah now wanting ter speak wid you," answered Pork, giggling and twisting his hands in
excitement.

"Well,  bring  in  the  bride,"  said  Gerald, and Pork, turning, beckoned into the hall to his wife, newly arrived from the Wilkes plantation to
become  part  of  the  household  of  Tara.  She entered, and behind her, almost hidden by her voluminous calico skirts, came her twelve-year-old
daughter, squirming against her mother's legs.

Dilcey was tall and bore herself erectly. She might have been any age from thirty to sixty, so unlined was her immobile bronze face. Indian blood
was  plain in her features, overbalancing the negroid characteristics. The red color of her skin, narrow high forehead, prominent cheek bones and
the  hawk-bridged  nose which flattened at the end above thick negro lips, all showed the mixture of two races. She was self-possessed and walked
with a dignity that surpassed even Mammy's, for Mammy had acquired her dignity and Dilcey's was in her blood.

When she spoke, her voice was not so slurred as most negroes' and she chose her words more carefully.

"Good  evenin',  young  Misses.  Mist' Gerald, I is sorry to 'sturb you, but I wanted to come here and thank you agin fo' buyin' me and my chile.
Lots of gentlemens might a' bought me but they wouldn't a' bought my Prissy, too, jes' to keep me frum grievin' and I thanks you. I'm gwine do my
bes' fo' you and show you I ain't forgettin'."

"Hum--hurrump," said Gerald, clearing his throat in embarrassment at being caught openly in an act of kindness.

Dilcey  turned to Scarlett and something like a smile wrinkled the corners of her eyes. "Miss Scarlett, Poke done tole me how you ast Mist Gerald
to buy me. And so I'm gwine give you my Prissy fo' yo' own maid."

She reached behind her and jerked the little girl forward. She was a brown little creature, with skinny legs like a bird and a myriad of pigtails
carefully  wrapped  with twine sticking stiffly out from her head. She had sharp, knowing eyes that missed nothing and a studiedly stupid look on
her face.

"Thank you, Dilcey," Scarlett replied, "but I'm afraid Mammy will have something to say about that. She's been my maid ever since I was born."

"Mammy  getting  ole,"  said  Dilcey, with a calmness that would have enraged Mammy. "She a good mammy, but you a young lady now and needs a good
maid, and my Prissy been maidin' fo' Miss India fo' a year now. She kin sew and fix hair good as a grown pusson."

Prodded by her mother, Prissy bobbed a sudden curtsy and grinned at Scarlett, who could not help grinning back.

"A sharp little wench," she thought, and said aloud: "Thank you, Dilcey, we'll see about it when Mother comes home."

"Thankee,  Ma'm.  I  gives  you a good night," said Dilcey and, turning, left the room with her child, Pork dancing attendance. The supper things
cleared  away, Gerald resumed his oration, but with little satisfaction to himself and none at all to his audience. His thunderous predictions of
immediate  war and his rhetorical questions as to whether the South would stand for further insults from the Yankees only produced faintly bored,
"Yes,  Papas" and "No, Pas." Carreen, sitting on a hassock under the big lamp, was deep in the romance of a girl who had taken the veil after her
lover's  death and, with silent tears of enjoyment oozing from her eyes, was pleasurably picturing herself in a white coif. Suellen, embroidering
on what she gigglingly called her "hope chest," was wondering if she could possibly detach Stuart Tarleton from her sister's side at the barbecue
tomorrow and fascinate him with the sweet womanly qualities which she possessed and Scarlett did not. And Scarlett was in a tumult about Ashley.

How  could Pa talk on and on about Fort Sumter and the Yankees when he knew her heart was breaking? As usual in the very young, she marveled that
people could be so selfishly oblivious to her pain and the world rock along just the same, in spite of her heartbreak.

Her  mind  was  as  if a cyclone had gone through it, and it seemed strange that the dining room where they sat should be so placid, so unchanged
from  what  it had always been. The heavy mahogany table and sideboards, the massive silver, the bright rag rugs on the shining floor were all in
their  accustomed places, just as if nothing had happened. It was a friendly and comfortable room and, ordinarily, Scarlett loved the quiet hours
which the family spent there after supper; but tonight she hated the sight of it and, if she had not feared her father's loudly bawled questions,
she would have slipped away, down the dark hall to Ellen's little office and cried out her sorrow on the old sofa.

That was the room that Scarlett liked the best in all the house. There, Ellen sat before her tall secretary each morning, keeping the accounts of
the  plantation  and  listening to the reports of Jonas Wilkerson, the overseer. There also the family idled while Ellen's quill scratched across
her  ledgers.  Gerald in the old rocker, the girls on the sagging cushions of the sofa that was too battered and worn for the front of the house.
Scarlett  longed  to  be  there  now, alone with Ellen, so she could put her head in her mother's lap and cry in peace. Wouldn't Mother ever come
home?

Then,  wheels  ground  sharply  on the graveled driveway, and the soft murmur of Ellen's voice dismissing the coachman floated into the room. The
whole  group  looked  up eagerly as she entered rapidly, her hoops swaying, her face tired and sad. There entered with her the faint fragrance of
lemon  verbena sachet, which seemed always to creep from the folds of her dresses, a fragrance that was always linked in Scarlett's mind with her
mother.  Mammy  followed  at  a  few  paces, the leather bag in her hand, her underlip pushed out and her brow lowering. Mammy muttered darkly to
herself  as  she  waddled,  taking  care  that  her  remarks  were  pitched  too low to be understood but loud enough to register her unqualified
disapproval.

"I  am  sorry  I  am so late," said Ellen, slipping her plaid shawl from drooping shoulders and handing it to Scarlett, whose cheek she patted in
passing.

Gerald's face had brightened as if by magic at her entrance.

"Is the brat baptized?" he questioned.

"Yes, and dead, poor thing," said Ellen. "I feared Emmie would die too, but I think she will live."

The girls' faces turned to her, startled and questioning, and Gerald wagged his head philosophically.

"Well, 'tis better so that the brat is dead, no doubt, poor fatherle--"

"It  is  late.  We  had better have prayers now," interrupted Ellen so smoothly that, if Scarlett had not known her mother well, the interruption
would have passed unnoticed.

It  would  be interesting to know who was the father of Emmie Slattery's baby, but Scarlett knew she would never learn the truth of the matter if
she  waited  to  hear it from her mother. Scarlett suspected Jonas Wilkerson, for she had frequently seen him walking down the road with Emmie at
nightfall.  Jonas  was  a  Yankee and a bachelor, and the fact that he was an overseer forever barred him from any contact with the County social
life.  There  was  no  family of any standing into which he could marry, no people with whom he could associate except the Slatterys and riffraff
like  them.  As  he  was several cuts above the Slatterys in education, it was only natural that he should not want to marry Emmie, no matter how
often he might walk with her in the twilight.

Scarlett sighed, for her curiosity was sharp. Things were always happening under her mother's eyes which she noticed no more than if they had not
happened at all. Ellen ignored all things contrary to her ideas of propriety and tried to teach Scarlett to do the same, but with poor success.

Ellen  had  stepped  to  the  mantel  to take her rosary beads from the small inlaid casket in which they always reposed when Mammy spoke up with
firmness.

"Miss Ellen, you gwine eat some supper befo' you does any prayin'."

"Thank you. Mammy, but I am not hungry."

"Ah  gwine  fix yo' supper mahseff an' you eats it," said Mammy, her brow furrowed with indignation as she started down the hall for the kitchen.
"Poke!" she called, "tell Cookie stir up de fiah. Miss Ellen home."

As  the  boards  shuddered under her weight, the soliloquy she had been muttering in the front hall grew louder and louder, coming clearly to the
ears of the family in the dining room.

"Ah  has said time an' again, it doan do no good doin' nuthin' fer w'ite trash. Dey is de shiflesses, mos' ungrateful passel of no-counts livin'.
An'  Miss  Ellen  got no bizness weahin' herseff out waitin' on folks dat did dey be wuth shootin' dey'd have niggers ter wait on dem. An' Ah has
said--"

Her  voice  trailed off as she went down the long open passageway, covered only by a roof, that led into the kitchen. Mammy had her own method of
letting  her  owners know exactly where she stood on all matters. She knew it was beneath the dignity of quality white folks to pay the slightest
attention to what a darky said when she was just grumbling to herself. She knew that to uphold this dignity, they must ignore what she said, even
if  she  stood in the next room and almost shouted. It protected her from reproof, and it left no doubt in anyone's mind as to her exact views on
any subject.

Pork  entered  the  room,  bearing  a plate, silver and a napkin. He was followed closely by Jack, a black little boy of ten, hastily buttoning a
white  linen  jacket  with  one  hand and bearing in the other a fly-swisher, made of thin strips of newspaper tied to a reed longer than he was.
Ellen  had  a beautiful peacock-feather fly-brusher, but it was used only on very special occasions and then only after domestic struggle, due to
the obstinate conviction of Pork, Cookie and Mammy that peacock feathers were bad luck.

Ellen sat down in the chair which Gerald pulled out for her and four voices attacked her.

"Mother, the lace is loose on my new ball dress and I want to wear it tomorrow night at Twelve Oaks. Won't you please fix it?"

"Mother,  Scarlett's  new dress is prettier than mine and I look like a fright in pink. Why can't she wear my pink and let me wear her green? She
looks all right in pink."

"Mother, can I stay up for the ball tomorrow night? I'm thirteen now--"

"Mrs.  O'Hara,  would  you believe it-- Hush, you girls, before I take me crop to you! Cade Calvert was in Atlanta this morning and he says--will
you be quiet and let me be hearing me own voice?--and he says it's all upset they are there and talking nothing but war, militia drilling, troops
forming. And he says the news from Charleston is that they will be putting up with no more Yankee insults."

Ellen's tired mouth smiled into the tumult as she addressed herself first to her husband, as a wife should.

"If the nice people of Charleston feel that way, I'm sure we will all feel the same way soon," she said, for she had a deeply rooted belief that,
excepting  only  Savannah,  most of the gentle blood of the whole continent could be found in that small seaport city, a belief shared largely by
Charlestonians.

"No,  Carreen,  next  year, dear. Then you can stay up for balls and wear grown-up dresses, and what a good time my little pink cheeks will have!
Don't pout, dear. You can go to the barbecue, remember that, and stay up through supper, but no balls until you are fourteen.

"Give me your gown, Scarlett, I will whip the lace for you after prayers.

"Suellen,  I  do  not  like your tone, dear. Your pink gown is lovely and suitable to your complexion, Scarlett's is to hers. But you may wear my
garnet necklace tomorrow night."

Suellen,  behind  her  mother's hack, wrinkled her nose triumphantly at Scarlett, who had been planning to beg the necklace for herself. Scarlett
put  out  her  tongue  at her. Suellen was an annoying sister with her whining and selfishness, and had it not been for Ellen's restraining hand,
Scarlett would frequently have boxed her ears.

"Now, Mr. O'Hara, tell me more about what Mr. Calvert said about Charleston," said Ellen.

Scarlett  knew  her mother cared nothing at all about war and politics and thought them masculine matters about which no lady could intelligently
concern herself. But it gave Gerald pleasure to air his views, and Ellen was unfailingly thoughtful of her husband's pleasure.

While  Gerald  launched forth on his news, Mammy set the plates before her mistress, golden-topped biscuits, breast of fried chicken and a yellow
yam  open  and  steaming,  with  melted butter dripping from it. Mammy pinched small Jack, and he hastened to his business of slowly swishing the
paper  ribbons back and forth behind Ellen. Mammy stood beside the table, watching every forkful that traveled from plate to mouth, as though she
intended  to  force  the food down Ellen's throat should she see signs of flagging. Ellen ate diligently, but Scarlett could see that she was too
tired to know what she was eating. Only Mammy's implacable face forced her to it.

When  the dish was empty and Gerald only midway in his remarks on the thievishness of Yankees who wanted to free darkies and yet offered no penny
to pay for their freedom, Ellen rose.

"We'll be having prayers?" he questioned, reluctantly.

"Yes.  It  is  so  late--why, it is actually ten o'clock," as the clock with coughing and tinny thumps marked the hour. "Carreen should have been
asleep long ago. The lamp, please, Pork, and my prayer book, Mammy."

Prompted  by Mammy's hoarse whisper, Jack set his fly-brush in the corner and removed the dishes, while Mammy fumbled in the sideboard drawer for
Ellen's worn prayer book. Pork, tiptoeing, reached the ring in the chain and drew the lamp slowly down until the table top was brightly bathed in
light  and  the  ceiling  receded  into shadows. Ellen arranged her skirts and sank to the floor on her knees, laying the open prayer book on the
table  before  her and clasping her hands upon it. Gerald knelt beside her, and Scarlett and Suellen took their accustomed places on the opposite
side  of  the  table,  folding  their  voluminous petticoats in pads under their knees, so they would ache less from contact with the hard floor.
Carreen,  who was small for her age, could not kneel comfortably at the table and so knelt facing a chair, her elbows on the seat. She liked this
position, for she seldom failed to go to sleep during prayers and, in this postures it escaped her mother's notice.

The  house  servants  shuffled and rustled in the hall to kneel by the doorway, Mammy groaning aloud as she sank down, Pork straight as a ramrod,
Rosa and Teena, the maids, graceful in their spreading bright calicoes, Cookie gaunt and yellow beneath her snowy head rag, and Jack, stupid with
sleep,  as far away from Mammy's pinching fingers as possible. Their dark eyes gleamed expectantly, for praying with their white folks was one of
the  events  of  the day. The old and colorful phrases of the litany with its Oriental imagery meant little to them but it satisfied something in
their hearts, and they always swayed when they chanted the responses: "Lord, have mercy on us," "Christ, have mercy on us."

Ellen  closed  her eyes and began praying, her voice rising and falling, lulling and soothing. Heads bowed in the circle of yellow light as Ellen
thanked God for the health and happiness of her home, her family and her negroes.

When  she  had finished her prayers for those beneath the roof of Tara, her father, mother, sisters, three dead babies and "all the poor souls in
Purgatory,"  she  clasped  her  white  beads between long fingers and began the Rosary. Like the rushing of a soft wind, the responses from black
throats and white throats rolled back:

"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death."

Despite her heartache and the pain of unshed tears, a deep sense of quiet and peace fell upon Scarlett as it always did at this hour. Some of the
disappointment of the day and the dread of the morrow departed from her, leaving a feeling of hope. It was not the lifting up of her heart to God
that  brought this balm, for religion went no more than lip deep with her. It was the sight of her mother's serene face upturned to the throne of
God  and  His  saints  and  angels,  praying for blessings on those whom she loved. When Ellen intervened with Heaven, Scarlett felt certain that
Heaven heard.

Ellen finished and Gerald, who could never find his beads at prayer time, began furtively counting his decade on his fingers. As his voice droned
on,  Scarlett's  thoughts  strayed, in spite of herself. She knew she should be examining her conscience. Ellen had taught her that at the end of
each day it was her duty to examine her conscience thoroughly, to admit her numerous faults and pray to God for forgiveness and strength never to
repeat them. But Scarlett was examining her heart.

She dropped her head upon her folded hands so that her mother could not see her face, and her thoughts went sadly back to Ashley. How could he be
planning to marry Melanie when he really loved her, Scarlett? And when he knew how much she loved him? How could he deliberately break her heart?

Then, suddenly, an idea, shining and new, flashed like a comet through her brain.

"Why, Ashley hasn't an idea that I'm in love with him!"

She  almost  gasped aloud in the shock of its unexpectedness. Her mind stood still as if paralyzed for a long, breathless instant, and then raced
forward.

"How could he know? I've always acted so prissy and ladylike and touch-me-not around him he probably thinks I don't care a thing about him except
as a friend. Yes, that's why he's never spoken! He thinks his love is hopeless. And that's why he's looked so--"

Her  mind  went  swiftly  back  to  those  times when she had caught him looking at her in that strange manner, when the gray eyes that were such
perfect curtains for his thoughts had been wide and naked and had in them a look of torment and despair.

"He's  been  broken hearted because he thinks I'm in love with Brent or Stuart or Cade. And probably he thinks that if he can't have me, he might
as well please his family and marry Melanie. But if he knew I did love him--"

Her  volatile spirits shot up from deepest depression to excited happiness. This was the answer to Ashley's reticence, to his strange conduct. He
didn't  know!  Her vanity leaped to the aid of her desire to believe, making belief a certainty. If he knew she loved him, he would hasten to her
side. She had only to--

"Oh!"  she  thought rapturously, digging her fingers into her lowered brow. "What a fool I've been not to think of this till now! I must think of
some way to let him know. He wouldn't marry her if he knew I loved him! How could he?"

With  a  start,  she  realized  that  Gerald  had finished and her mother's eyes were on her. Hastily she began her decade, telling off the beads
automatically  but  with  a depth of emotion in her voice that caused Mammy to open her eyes and shoot a searching glance at her. As she finished
her prayers and Suellen, then Carreen, began their decades, her mind was still speeding onward with her entrancing new thought.

Even  now,  it  wasn't  too  late! Too often the County had been scandalized by elopements when one or the other of the participating parties was
practically at the altar with a third. And Ashley's engagement had not even been announced yet! Yes, there was plenty of time!

If  no love lay between Ashley and Melanie but only a promise given long ago, then why wasn't it possible for him to break that promise and marry
her? Surely he would do it, if he knew that she, Scarlett, loved him. She must find some way to let him know. She would find some way! And then--

Scarlett came abruptly out of her dream of delight, for she had neglected to make the responses and her mother was looking at her reprovingly. As
she resumed the ritual, she opened her eyes briefly and cast a quick glance around the room. The kneeling figures, the soft glow of the lamp, the
dim  shadows  where  the  negroes  swayed, even the familiar objects that had been so hateful to her sight an hour ago, in an instant took on the
color of her own emotions, and the room seemed once more a lovely place. She would never forget this moment or this scene!

"Virgin  most  faithful,"  her mother intoned. The Litany of the Virgin was beginning, and obediently Scarlett responded: "Pray for us," as Ellen
praised in soft contralto the attributes of the Mother of God.

As  always  since  childhood,  this  was, for Scarlett, a moment for adoration of Ellen, rather than the Virgin. Sacrilegious though it might be,
Scarlett  always  saw,  through  her  closed  eyes,  the upturned face of Ellen and not the Blessed Virgin, as the ancient phrases were repeated.
"Health  of the Sick," "Seat of Wisdom," "Refuge of Sinners," "Mystical Rose"--they were beautiful because they were the attributes of Ellen. But
tonight,  because  of  the  exaltation  of  her  own  spirit,  Scarlett found in the whole ceremonial, the softly spoken words, the murmur of the
responses,  a  surpassing  beauty  beyond  any  that she had ever experienced before. And her heart went up to God in sincere thankfulness that a
pathway for her feet had been opened--out of her misery and straight to the arms of Ashley.

When  the  last  "Amen"  sounded, they all rose, somewhat stiffly, Mammy being hauled to her feet by the combined efforts of Teena and Rosa. Pork
took a long spiller from the mantelpiece, lit it from the lamp flame and went into the hall. Opposite the winding stair stood a walnut sideboard,
too  large  for  use  in  the dining room, bearing on its wide top several lamps and a long row of candles in candlesticks. Pork lit one lamp and
three  candles  and, with the pompous dignity of a first chamberlain of the royal bedchamber lighting a king and queen to their rooms, he led the
procession  up  the  stairs,  holding  the  light  high  above his head. Ellen, on Gerald's arm, followed him, and the girls, each taking her own
candlestick, mounted after them.

Scarlett  entered  her  room,  set  the  candle  on  the  tall  chest of drawers and fumbled in the dark closet for the dancing dress that needed
stitching.  Throwing  it  across  her arm, she crossed the hall quietly. The door of her parents' bedroom was slightly ajar and, before she could
knock, Ellen's voice, low but stern, came to her ears.

"Mr. O'Hara, you must dismiss Jonas Wilkerson."

Gerald exploded. "And where will I be getting another overseer who wouldn't be cheating me out of my eyeteeth?"

"He  must  be  dismissed,  immediately,  tomorrow  morning.  Big Sam is a good foreman and he can take over the duties until you can hire another
overseer."

"Ah, ha!" came Gerald's voice. "So, I understand! Then the worthy Jonas sired the--"

"He must be dismissed."

"So, he is the father of Emmie Slattery's baby," thought Scarlett. "Oh, well, what else can you expect from a Yankee man and a white-trash girl?"

Then, after a discreet pause which gave Gerald's splutterings time to die away, she knocked on the door and handed the dress to her mother.

By  the  time Scarlett had undressed and blown out the candle, her plan for tomorrow had worked itself out in every detail. It was a simple plan,
for,  with  Gerald's  single-mindedness  of purpose, her eyes were centered on the goal and she thought only of the most direct steps by which to
reach it.

First, she would be "prideful," as Gerald had commanded. From the moment she arrived at Twelve Oaks, she would be her gayest, most spirited self.
No  one  would  suspect that she had ever been downhearted because of Ashley and Melanie. And she would flirt with every man there. That would be
cruel  to  Ashley,  but  it would make him yearn for her all the more. She wouldn't overlook a man of marriageable age, from ginger-whiskered old
Frank Kennedy, who was Suellen's beau, on down to shy, quiet, blushing Charles Hamilton, Melanie's brother. They would swarm around her like bees
around  a hive, and certainly Ashley would be drawn from Melanie to join the circle of her admirers. Then somehow she would maneuver to get a few
minutes  alone  with him, away from the crowd. She hoped everything would work out that way, because it would be more difficult otherwise. But if
Ashley didn't make the first move, she would simply have to do it herself.

When  they were finally alone, he would have fresh in his mind the picture of the other men thronging about her, he would be newly impressed with
the  fact  that  every  one of them wanted her, and that look of sadness and despair would be in his eyes. Then she would make him happy again by
letting him discover that, popular though she was, she preferred him above any other man in all the world. And when she admitted it, modestly and
sweetly, she would look a thousand things more. Of course, she would do it all in a ladylike way. She wouldn't even dream of saying to him boldly
that she loved him--that would never do. But the manner of telling him was a detail that troubled her not at all. She had managed such situations
before and she could do it again.

Lying  in  the  bed  with  the  moonlight  streaming  dimly  over her, she pictured the whole scene in her mind. She saw the look of surprise and
happiness  that  would  come  over his face when he realized that she really loved him, and she heard the words he would say asking her to be his
wife.

Naturally,  she  would have to say then that she simply couldn't think of marrying a man when he was engaged to another girl, but he would insist
and finally she would let herself be persuaded. Then they would decide to run off to Jonesboro that very afternoon and--

Why, by this time tomorrow night, she might be Mrs. Ashley Wilkes!

She  sat  up  in  bed, hugging her knees, and for a long happy moment she WAS Mrs. Ashley Wilkes--Ashley's bride! Then a slight chill entered her
heart. Suppose it didn't work out this way? Suppose Ashley didn't beg her to run away with him? Resolutely she pushed the thought from her mind.

"I won't think of that now," she said firmly. "If I think of it now, it will upset me. There's no reason why things won't come out the way I want
them--if he loves me. And I know he does!"

She  raised  her  chin  and  her pale, black-fringed eyes sparkled in the moonlight. Ellen had never told her that desire and attainment were two
different  matters;  life  had not taught her that the race was not to the swift. She lay in the silvery shadows with courage rising and made the
plans  that a sixteen-year-old makes when life has been so pleasant that defeat is an impossibility and a pretty dress and a clear complexion are
weapons to vanquish fate.



CHAPTER V


It  was ten o'clock in the morning. The day was warm for April and the golden sunlight streamed brilliantly into Scarlett's room through the blue
curtains  of  the  wide  windows.  The cream-colored walls glowed with light and the depths of the mahogany furniture gleamed deep red like wine,
while the floor glistened as if it were glass, except where the rag rugs covered it and they were spots of gay color.

Already  summer  was  in  the  air,  the first hint of Georgia summer when the high tide of spring gives way reluctantly before a fiercer heat. A
balmy,  soft  warmth poured into the room, heavy with velvety smells, redolent of many blossoms, of newly fledged trees and of the moist, freshly
turned  red  earth.  Through the window Scarlett could see the bright riot of the twin lanes of daffodils bordering the graveled driveway and the
golden  masses  of  yellow jessamine spreading flowery sprangles modestly to the earth like crinolines. The mockingbirds and the jays, engaged in
their  old  feud for possession of the magnolia tree beneath her window, were bickering, the jays strident, acrimonious, the mockers sweet voiced
and plaintive.

Such  a  glowing  morning  usually called Scarlett to the window, to lean arms on the broad sill and drink in the scents and sounds of Tara. But,
today  she  had  no  eye for sun or azure sky beyond a hasty thought, "Thank God, it isn't raining." On the bed lay the apple-green, watered-silk
ball  dress with its festoons of ecru lace, neatly packed in a large cardboard box. It was ready to be carried to Twelve Oaks to be donned before
the dancing began, but Scarlett shrugged at the sight of it. If her plans were successful, she would not wear that dress tonight. Long before the
ball  began,  she  and  Ashley  would be on their way to Jonesboro to be married. The troublesome question was--what dress should she wear to the
barbecue?

What  dress  would  best  set  off  her charms and make her most irresistible to Ashley? Since eight o'clock she had been trying on and rejecting
dresses,  and now she stood dejected and irritable in lace pantalets, linen corset cover and three billowing lace and linen petticoats. Discarded
garments lay about her on the floor, the bed, the chairs, in bright heaps of color and straying ribbons.

The  rose  organdie  with  long  pink  sash  was  becoming, but she had worn it last summer when Melanie visited Twelve Oaks and she'd be sure to
remember  it.  And  might be catty enough to mention it. The black bombazine, with its puffed sleeves and princess lace collar, set off her white
skin superbly, but it did make her look a trifle elderly. Scarlett peered anxiously in the mirror at her sixteen-year-old face as if expecting to
see  wrinkles  and  sagging chin muscles. It would never do to appear sedate and elderly before Melanie's sweet youthfulness. The lavender barred
muslin  was  beautiful  with  those wide insets of lace and net about the hem, but it had never suited her type. It would suit Carreen's delicate
profile  and  wishy-washy  expression  perfectly,  but  Scarlett  felt  that  it  made  her  look  like a schoolgirl. It would never do to appear
schoolgirlish  beside  Melanie's  poised self. The green plaid taffeta, frothing with flounces and each flounce edged in green velvet ribbon, was
most  becoming,  in  fact  her  favorite dress, for it darkened her eyes to emerald. But there was unmistakably a grease spot on the front of the
basque.  Of course, her brooch could be pinned over the spot, but perhaps Melanie had sharp eyes. There remained varicolored cotton dresses which
Scarlett  felt  were  not  festive  enough  for  the  occasion,  ball dresses and the green sprigged muslin she had worn yesterday. But it was an
afternoon  dress.  It  was  not suitable for a barbecue, for it had only tiny puffed sleeves and the neck was low enough for a dancing dress. But
there  was  nothing else to do but wear it. After all she was not ashamed of her neck and arms and bosom, even if it was not correct to show them
in the morning.

As  she  stood  before the mirror and twisted herself about to get a side view, she thought that there was absolutely nothing about her figure to
cause  her  shame. Her neck was short but rounded and her arms plump and enticing. Her breasts, pushed high by her stays, were very nice breasts.
She  had  never  had to sew tiny rows of silk ruffles in the lining of her basques, as most sixteen-year-old girls did, to give their figures the
desired  curves  and  fullness.  She was glad she had inherited Ellen's slender white hands and tiny feet, and she wished she had Ellen's height,
too,  but  her  own  height  pleased  her  very well. What a pity legs could not be shown, she thought, pulling up her petticoats and regretfully
viewing them, plump and neat under pantalets. She had such nice legs. Even the girls at the Fayetteville Academy had admitted as much. And as for
her waist--there was no one in Fayetteville, Jonesboro or in three counties, for that matter, who had so small a waist.

The  thought  of her waist brought her back to practical matters. The green muslin measured seventeen inches about the waist, and Mammy had laced
her  for  the  eighteen-inch bombazine. Mammy would have to lace her tighter. She pushed open the door, listened and heard Mammy's heavy tread in
the  downstairs hall. She shouted for her impatiently, knowing she could raise her voice with impunity, as Ellen was in the smokehouse, measuring
out the day's food to Cookie.

"Some  folks  thinks  as  how  Ah  kin fly," grumbled Mammy, shuffling up the stairs. She entered puffing, with the expression of one who expects
battle and welcomes it. In her large black hands was a tray upon which food smoked, two large yams covered with butter, a pile of buckwheat cakes
dripping  syrup,  and  a  large slice of ham swimming in gravy. Catching sight of Mammy's burden, Scarlett's expression changed from one of minor
irritation  to  obstinate  belligerency. In the excitement of trying on dresses she had forgotten Mammy's ironclad rule that, before going to any
party, the O'Hara girls must be crammed so full of food at home they would be unable to eat any refreshments at the party.

"It's no use. I won't eat it. You can just take it back to the kitchen."

Mammy set the tray on the table and squared herself, hands on hips.

"Yas'm,  you  is! Ah ain' figgerin' on havin' happen whut happen at dat las' barbecue w'en Ah wuz too sick frum dem chittlins Ah et ter fetch you
no tray befo' you went. You is gwine eat eve'y bite of dis."

"I am not! Now, come here and lace me tighter because we are late already. I heard the carriage come round to the front of the house."

Mammy's tone became wheedling.

"Now, Miss Scarlett, you be good an' come eat jes'a lil. Miss Carreen an' Miss Suellen done eat all dey'n."

"They  would," said Scarlett contemptuously. "They haven't any more spirit than a rabbit. But I won't! I'm through with trays. I'm not forgetting
the  time I ate a whole tray and went to the Calverts' and they had ice cream out of ice they'd brought all the way from Savannah, and I couldn't
eat but a spoonful. I'm going to have a good time today and eat as much as I please."

At  this  defiant  heresy, Mammy's brow lowered with indignation. What a young miss could do and what she could not do were as different as black
and  white  in  Mammy's  mind; there was no middle ground of deportment between. Suellen and Carreen were clay in her powerful hands and harkened
respectfully  to  her  warning.  But  it  had always been a struggle to teach Scarlett that most of her natural impulses were unladylike. Mammy's
victories over Scarlett were hard-won and represented guile unknown to the white mind.

"Ef  you  doan care 'bout how folks talks 'bout dis fainbly, Ah does," she rumbled. "Ah ain' gwine stand by an' have eve'ybody at de pahty sayin'
how  you ain' fotched up right. Ah has tole you an' tole you dat you kin allus tell a lady by dat she eat lak a bird. An' Ah ain' aimin' ter have
you go ter Mist' Wilkes' an' eat lak a fe'el han' an' gobble lak a hawg."

"Mother is a lady and she eats," countered Scarlett.

"W'en  you  is  mahied,  you kin eat, too," retorted Mammy. "W'en Miss Ellen yo' age, she never et nuthin' w'en she went out, an' needer yo' Aunt
Pauline nor yo' Aunt Eulalie. An' dey all done mahied. Young misses whut eats heavy mos' gener'ly doan never ketch husbands."

"I don't believe it. At that barbecue when you were sick and I didn't eat beforehand, Ashley Wilkes told me he LIKED to see a girl with a healthy
appetite."

Mammy shook her head ominously.

"Whut gempmums says an' whut dey thinks is two diffunt things. An' Ah ain' noticed Mist' Ashley axing fer ter mahy you."

Scarlett  scowled,  started  to speak sharply and then caught herself. Mammy had her there and there was no argument. Seeing the obdurate look on
Scarlett's face, Mammy picked up the tray and, with the bland guile of her race, changed her tactics. As she started for the door, she sighed.

"Well'm,  awright.  Ah wuz tellin' Cookie w'ile she wuz a-fixin' dis tray. 'You kin sho tell a lady by whut she DOAN eat,' an' Ah say ter Cookie.
'Ah ain' seed no w'ite lady who et less'n Miss Melly Hamilton did las' time she wuz visitin' Mist' Ashley'--Ah means, visitin' Miss India."

Scarlett  shot  a look of sharp suspicion at her, but Mammy's broad face carried only a look of innocence and of regret that Scarlett was not the
lady Melanie Hamilton was.

"Put  down  that  tray and come lace me tighter," said Scarlett irritably. "And I'll try to eat a little afterwards. If I ate now I couldn't lace
tight enough."

Cloaking her triumph, Mammy set down the tray.

"Whut mah lamb gwine wear?"

"That," answered Scarlett, pointing at the fluffy mass of green flowered muslin. Instantly Mammy was in arms.

"No,  you  ain'.  It  ain'  fittin'  fer mawnin'. You kain show yo' buzzum befo' three o'clock an' dat dress ain' got no neck an' no sleeves. An'
you'll git freckled sho as you born, an' Ah ain' figgerin' on you gittin' freckled affer all de buttermilk Ah been puttin' on you all dis winter,
bleachin' dem freckles you got at Savannah settin' on de beach. Ah sho gwine speak ter yo' Ma 'bout you."

"If  you say one word to her before I'm dressed I won't eat a bite," said Scarlett coolly. "Mother won't have time to send me back to change once
I'm dressed."

Mammy sighed resignedly, beholding herself outguessed. Between the two evils, it was better to have Scarlett wear an afternoon dress at a morning
barbecue than to have her gobble like a hog.

"Hole onter sumpin' an' suck in yo' breaf," she commanded.

Scarlett obeyed, bracing herself and catching firm hold of one of the bedposts. Mammy pulled and jerked vigorously and, as the tiny circumference
of whalebone-girdled waist grew smaller, a proud, fond look came into her eyes.

"Ain' nobody got a wais' lak mah lamb," she said approvingly. "Eve'y time Ah pulls Miss Suellen littler dan twenty inches, she up an' faint."

"Pooh!" gasped Scarlctt, speaking with difficulty. "I never fainted in my life."

"Well,  'twouldn' do no hahm ef you wuz ter faint now an' den," advised Mammy. "You is so brash sometimes, Miss Scarlett. Ah been aimin' ter tell
you,  it  jes' doan look good de way you doan faint 'bout snakes an' mouses an' sech. Ah doan mean round home but w'en you is out in comp'ny. An'
Ah has tole you an'--"

"Oh,  hurry! Don't talk so much. I'll catch a husband. See if I don't, even if I don't scream and faint. Goodness, but my stays are tight! Put on
the dress."

Mammy  carefully  dropped  the twelve yards of green sprigged muslin over the mountainous petticoats and hooked up the back of the tight, low-cut
basque.

"You keep yo' shawl on yo' shoulders w'en you is in de sun, an' doan you go takin' off yo' hat w'en you is wahm," she commanded. "Elsewise you be
comin' home lookin' brown lak Ole Miz Slattery. Now, you come eat, honey, but doan eat too fas'. No use havin' it come right back up agin."

Scarlett  obediently  sat  down  before the tray, wondering if she would be able to get any food into her stomach and still have room to breathe.
Mammy  plucked  a  large  towel from the washstand and carefully tied it around Scarlett's neck, spreading the white folds over her lap. Scarlett
began on the ham, because she liked ham, and forced it down.

"I  wish  to  Heaven I was married," she said resentfully as she attacked the yams with loathing. "I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatural and
never  doing anything I want to do. I'm tired of acting like I don't eat more than a bird, and walking when I want to run and saying I feel faint
after  a  waltz,  when  I could dance for two days and never get tired. I'm tired of saying, 'How wonderful you are!' to fool men who haven't got
one-half  the sense I've got, and I'm tired of pretending I don't know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they're doing
it. . . . I can't eat another bite."

"Try a hot cake," said Mammy inexorably.

"Why is it a girl has to be so silly to catch a husband?"

"Ah specs it's kase gempmums doan know whut dey wants. Dey jes' knows whut dey thinks dey wants. An' givin' dem whut dey thinks dey wants saves a
pile  of  mizry  an' bein' a ole maid. An' dey thinks dey wants mousy lil gals wid bird's tastes an' no sense at all. It doan make a gempmum feel
lak mahyin' a lady ef he suspicions she got mo' sense dan he has."

"Don't you suppose men get surprised after they're married to find that their wives do have sense?"

"Well, it's too late den. Dey's already mahied. 'Sides, gempmums specs dey wives ter have sense."

"Some day I'm going to do and say everything I want to do and say, and if people don't like it I don't care."

"No, you ain'," said Mammy grimly. "Not while Ah got breaf. You eat dem cakes. Sop dem in de gravy, honey."

"I  don't think Yankee girls have to act like such fools. When we were at Saratoga last year, I noticed plenty of them acting like they had right
good sense and in front of men, too."

Mammy snorted.

"Yankee gals! Yas'm, Ah guess dey speaks dey minds awright, but Ah ain' noticed many of dem gittin' proposed ter at Saratoga."

"But Yankees must get married," argued Scarlett. "They don't just grow. They must get married and have children. There's too many of them."

"Men mahys dem fer dey money," said Mammy firmly.

Scarlett  sopped  the wheat cake in the gravy and put it in her mouth. Perhaps there was something to what Mammy said. There must be something in
it,  for  Ellen  said  the  same  things,  in  different and more delicate words. In fact, the mothers of all her girl friends impressed on their
daughters  the  necessity  of  being  helpless,  clinging,  doe-eyed creatures. Really, it took a lot of sense to cultivate and hold such a pose.
Perhaps she had been too brash. Occasionally she had argued with Ashley and frankly aired her opinions. Perhaps this and her healthy enjoyment of
walking  and  riding  had turned him from her to the frail Melanie. Perhaps if she changed her tactics-- But she felt that if Ashley succumbed to
premeditated  feminine  tricks, she could never respect him as she now did. Any man who was fool enough to fall for a simper, a faint and an "Oh,
how wonderful you are!" wasn't worth having. But they all seemed to like it.

If  she  had used the wrong tactics with Ashley in the past--well, that was the past and done with. Today she would use different ones, the right
ones.  She  wanted  him and she had only a few hours in which to get him. If fainting, or pretending to faint, would do the trick, then she would
faint.  If simpering, coquetry or empty-headedness would attract him, she would gladly play the flirt and be more empty-headed than even Cathleen
Calvert. And if bolder measures were necessary, she would take them. Today was the day!

There  was no one to tell Scarlett that her own personality, frighteningly vital though it was, was more attractive than any masquerade she might
adopt.  Had  she been told, she would have been pleased but unbelieving. And the civilization of which she was a part would have been unbelieving
too, for at no time, before or since, had so low a premium been placed on feminine naturalness.



As  the  carriage  bore her down the red road toward the Wilkes plantation, Scarlett had a feeling of guilty pleasure that neither her mother nor
Mammy  was with the party. There would be no one at the barbecue who, by delicately lifted brows or out-thrust underlip, could interfere with her
plan  of action. Of course, Suellen would be certain to tell tales tomorrow, but if all went as Scarlett hoped, the excitement of the family over
her  engagement to Ashley or her elopement would more than overbalance their displeasure. Yes, she was very glad Ellen had been forced to stay at
home.

Gerald,  primed  with brandy, had given Jonas Wilkerson his dismissal that morning, and Ellen had remained at Tara to go over the accounts of the
plantation before he took his departure. Scarlett had kissed her mother good-by in the little office where she sat before the tall secretary with
its  paper-stuffed  pigeonholes. Jonas Wilkerson, hat in hand, stood beside her, his sallow tight-skinned face hardly concealing the fury of hate
that  possessed  him  at  being  so  unceremoniously  turned  out  of  the  best  overseer's job in the County. And all because of a bit of minor
philandering.  He  had  told  Gerald  over  and  over  that Emmie Slattery's baby might have been fathered by any one of a dozen men as easily as
himself--an  idea  in  which  Gerald  concurred--but that had not altered his case so far as Ellen was concerned. Jonas hated all Southerners. He
hated their cool courtesy to him and their contempt for his social status, so inadequately covered by their courtesy. He hated Ellen O'Hara above
anyone else, for she was the epitome of all that he hated in Southerners.

Mammy,  as  head  woman  of  the  plantation, had remained to help Ellen, and it was Dilcey who rode on the driver's seat beside Toby, the girls'
dancing  dresses  in  a long box across her lap. Gerald rode beside the carriage on his big hunter, warm with brandy and pleased with himself for
having  gotten through with the unpleasant business of Wilkerson so speedily. He had shoved the responsibility onto Ellen, and her disappointment
at  missing  the barbecue and the gathering of her friends did not enter his mind; for it was a fine spring day and his fields were beautiful and
the birds were singing and he felt too young and frolicsome to think of anyone else. Occasionally he burst out with "Peg in a Low-backed Car" and
other Irish ditties or the more lugubrious lament for Robert Emmet, "She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps."

He  was  happy,  pleasantly  excited  over the prospect of spending the day shouting about the Yankees and the war, and proud of his three pretty
daughters  in  their  bright spreading hoop skirts beneath foolish little lace parasols. He gave no thought to his conversation of the day before
with  Scarlett,  for  it had completely slipped his mind. He only thought that she was pretty and a great credit to him and that, today, her eyes
were  as  green  as  the  hills  of Ireland. The last thought made him think better of himself, for it had a certain poetic ring to it, and so he
favored the girls with a loud and slightly off-key rendition of "The Wearin' o' the Green."

Scarlett, looking at him with the affectionate contempt that mothers feel for small swaggering sons, knew that he would be very drunk by sundown.
Coming  home in the dark, he would try, as usual, to jump every fence between Twelve Oaks and Tara and, she hoped, by the mercy of Providence and
the  good  sense  of  his  horse,  would escape breaking his neck. He would disdain the bridge and swim his horse through the river and come home
roaring, to be put to bed on the sofa in the office by Pork who always waited up with a lamp in the front hall on such occasions.

He  would  ruin his new gray broadcloth suit, which would cause him to swear horribly in the morning and tell Ellen at great length how his horse
fell off the bridge in the darkness--a palpable lie which would fool no one but which would be accepted by all and make him feel very clever.

Pa  is  a  sweet, selfish, irresponsible darling, Scarlett thought, with a surge of affection for him. She felt so excited and happy this morning
that  she included the whole world, as well as Gerald, in her affection. She was pretty and she knew it; she would have Ashley for her own before
the  day  was over; the sun was warm and tender and the glory of the Georgia spring was spread before her eyes. Along the roadside the blackberry
brambles  were  concealing  with softest green the savage red gulches cut by the winter's rains, and the bare granite boulders pushing up through
the  red earth were being draped with sprangles of Cherokee roses and compassed about by wild violets of palest purple hue. Upon the wooded hills
above  the  river,  the  dogwood  blossoms  lay glistening and white, as if snow still lingered among the greenery. The flowering crab trees were
bursting  their  buds  and rioting from delicate white to deepest pink and, beneath the trees where the sunshine dappled the pine straw, the wild
honeysuckle made a varicolored carpet of scarlet and orange and rose. There was a faint wild fragrance of sweet shrub on the breeze and the world
smelled good enough to eat.

"I'll remember how beautiful this day is till I die," thought Scarlett. "Perhaps it will be my wedding day!"

And  she  thought  with  a  tingling  in  her  heart  how she and Ashley might ride swiftly through this beauty of blossom and greenery this very
afternoon, or tonight by moonlight, toward Jonesboro and a preacher. Of course, she would have to be remarried by a priest from Atlanta, but that
would  be  something  for  Ellen  and  Gerald  to worry about. She quailed a little as she thought how white with mortification Ellen would be at
hearing  that  her  daughter  had  eloped with another girl's fiance, but she knew Ellen would forgive her when she saw her happiness. And Gerald
would scold and bawl but, for all his remarks of yesterday about not wanting her to marry Ashley, he would be pleased beyond words at an alliance
between his family and the Wilkes.

"But that'll be something to worry about after I'm married," she thought, tossing the worry from her.

It  was impossible to feel anything but palpitating joy in this warm sun, in this spring, with the chimneys of Twelve Oaks just beginning to show
on the hill across the river.

"I'll  live  there  all my life and I'll see fifty springs like this and maybe more, and I'll tell my children and my grandchildren how beautiful
this  spring was, lovelier than any they'll ever see." She was so happy at this thought that she joined in the last chorus of "The Wearin' o' the
Green" and won Gerald's shouted approval.

"I  don't  know why you're so happy this morning," said Suellen crossly, for the thought still rankled in her mind that she would look far better
in  Scarlett's  green  silk  dancing  frock  than  its rightful owner would. And why was Scarlett always so selfish about lending her clothes and
bonnets?  And  why  did Mother always back her up, declaring green was not Suellen's color? "You know as well as I do that Ashley's engagement is
going to be announced tonight. Pa said so this morning. And I know you've been sweet on him for months."

"That's  all  you  know," said Scarlett, putting out her tongue and refusing to lose her good humor. How surprised Miss Sue would be by this time
tomorrow morning!

"Susie, you know that's not so," protested Carreen, shocked. "It's Brent that Scarlett cares about."

Scarlett  turned  smiling  green  eyes  upon  her  younger  sister,  wondering how anyone could be so sweet. The whole family knew that Carreen's
thirteen-year-old  heart  was set upon Brent Tarleton, who never gave her a thought except as Scarlett's baby sister. When Ellen was not present,
the O'Haras teased her to tears about him.

"Darling,  I  don't  care  a thing about Brent," declared Scarlett, happy enough to be generous. "And he doesn't care a thing about me. Why, he's
waiting for you to grow up!"

Carreen's round little face became pink, as pleasure struggled with incredulity.

"Oh, Scarlett, really?"

"Scarlett, you know Mother said Carreen was too young to think about beaux yet, and there you go putting ideas in her head."

"Well,  go and tattle and see if I care," replied Scarlett. "You want to hold Sissy back, because you know she's going to be prettier than you in
a year or so."

"You'll  be keeping civil tongues in your heads this day, or I'll be taking me crop to you," warned Gerald. "Now whist! Is it wheels I'm hearing?
That'll be the Tarletons or the Fontaines."

As  they  neared  the  intersecting road that came down the thickly wooded hill from Mimosa and Fairhill, the sound of hooves and carriage wheels
became  plainer and clamorous feminine voices raised in pleasant dispute sounded from behind the screen of trees. Gerald, riding ahead, pulled up
his horse and signed to Toby to stop the carriage where the two roads met.

"'Tis  the  Tarleton  ladies," he announced to his daughters, his florid face abeam, for excepting Ellen there was no lady in the County he liked
more than the red-haired Mrs. Tarleton. "And 'tis herself at the reins. Ah, there's a woman with fine hands for a horse! Feather light and strong
as rawhide, and pretty enough to kiss for all that. More's the pity none of you have such hands," he added, casting fond but reproving glances at
his girls. "With Carreen afraid of the poor beasts and Sue with hands like sadirons when it comes to reins and you, Puss--"

"Well, at any rate I've never been thrown," cried Scarlett indignantly. "And Mrs. Tarleton takes a toss at every hunt."

"And breaks a collar bone like a man," said Gerald. "No fainting, no fussing. Now, no more of it, for here she comes."

He  stood  up  in his stirrups and took off his hat with a sweep, as the Tarleton carriage, overflowing with girls in bright dresses and parasols
and  fluttering  veils,  came  into  view,  with Mrs. Tarleton on the box as Gerald had said. With her four daughters, their mammy and their ball
dresses  in  long  cardboard  boxes  crowding  the  carriage, there was no room for the coachman. And, besides, Beatrice Tarleton never willingly
permitted  anyone,  black  or  white,  to  hold reins when her arms were out of slings. Frail, fine-boned, so white of skin that her flaming hair
seemed  to  have drawn all the color from her face into its vital burnished mass, she was nevertheless possessed of exuberant health and untiring
energy.  She  had  borne  eight  children,  as red of hair and as full of life as she, and had raised them most successfully, so the County said,
because she gave them all the loving neglect and the stern discipline she gave the colts she bred. "Curb them but don't break their spirits," was
Mrs. Tarleton's motto.

She  loved  horses  and  talked  horses  constantly. She understood them and handled them better than any man in the County. Colts overflowed the
paddock  onto  the front lawn, even as her eight children overflowed the rambling house on the hill, and colts and sons and daughters and hunting
dogs tagged after her as she went about the plantation. She credited her horses, especially her red mare, Nellie, with human intelligence; and if
the  cares of the house kept her busy beyond the time when she expected to take her daily ride, she put the sugar bowl in the hands of some small
pickaninny and said: "Give Nellie a handful and tell her I'll be out terrectly."

Except on rare occasions she always wore her riding habit, for whether she rode or not she always expected to ride and in that expectation put on
her  habit  upon arising. Each morning, rain or shine, Nellie was saddled and walked up and down in front of the house, waiting for the time when
Mrs.  Tarleton  could  spare an hour away from her duties. But Fairhill was a difficult plantation to manage and spare time hard to get, and more
often  than  not  Nellie  walked  up and down riderless hour after hour, while Beatrice Tarleton went through the day with the skirt of her habit
absently looped over her arm and six inches of shining boot showing below it.

Today,  dressed  in  dull  black  silk  over  unfashionably  narrow hoops, she still looked as though in her habit, for the dress was as severely
tailored as her riding costume and the small black hat with its long black plume perched over one warm, twinkling, brown eye was a replica of the
battered old hat she used for hunting.

She  waved  her whip when she saw Gerald and drew her dancing pair of red horses to a halt, and the four girls in the back of the carriage leaned
out and gave such vociferous cries of greeting that the team pranced in alarm. To a casual observer it would seem that years had passed since the
Tarletons had seen the O'Haras, instead of only two days. But they were a sociable family and liked their neighbors, especially the O'Hara girls.
That  is,  they  liked Suellen and Carreen. No girl in the County, with the possible exception of the empty-headed Cathleen Calvert, really liked
Scarlett.

In  summers, the County averaged a barbecue and ball nearly every week, but to the red-haired Tarletons with their enormous capacity for enjoying
themselves,  each  barbecue and each ball was as exciting as if it were the first they had ever attended. They were a pretty, buxom quartette, so
crammed  into  the  carriage  that their hoops and flounces overlapped and their parasols nudged and bumped together above their wide leghorn sun
hats,  crowned  with roses and dangling with black velvet chin ribbons. All shades of red hair were represented beneath these hats, Hetty's plain
red hair, Camilla's strawberry blonde, Randa's coppery auburn and small Betsy's carrot top.

"That's a fine bevy, Ma'm," said Gerald gallantly, reining his horse alongside the carriage. "But it's far they'll go to beat their mother."

Mrs.  Tarleton  rolled  her  red-brown eyes and sucked in her lower lip in burlesqued appreciation, and the girls cried, "Ma, stop making eyes or
we'll tell Pa!" "I vow, Mr. O'Hara, she never gives us a chance when there's a handsome man like you around!"

Scarlett  laughed  with the rest at these sallies but, as always, the freedom with which the Tarletons treated their mother came as a shock. They
acted  as if she were one of themselves and not a day over sixteen. To Scarlett, the very idea of saying such things to her own mother was almost
sacrilegious.  And yet--and yet--there was something very pleasant about the Tarleton girls' relations with their mother, and they adored her for
all  that  they  criticized  and scolded and teased her. Not, Scarlett loyally hastened to tell herself, that she would prefer a mother like Mrs.
Tarleton  to  Ellen, but still it would be fun to romp with a mother. She knew that even that thought was disrespectful to Ellen and felt ashamed
of  it.  She  knew no such troublesome thoughts ever disturbed the brains under the four flaming thatches in the carriage and, as always when she
felt herself different from her neighbors, an irritated confusion fell upon her.

Quick  though  her  brain was, it was not made for analysis, but she half-consciously realized that, for all the Tarleton girls were as unruly as
colts and wild as March hares, there was an unworried single-mindedness about them that was part of their inheritance. On both their mother's and
their  father's  side  they  were  Georgians,  north  Georgians,  only a generation away from pioneers. They were sure of themselves and of their
environment.  They  knew  instinctively what they were about, as did the Wilkeses, though in widely divergent ways, and in them there was no such
conflict  as  frequently  raged  in  Scarlett's bosom where the blood of a soft-voiced, overbred Coast aristocrat mingled with the shrewd, earthy
blood  of  an  Irish peasant. Scarlett wanted to respect and adore her mother like an idol and to rumple her hair and tease her too. And she knew
she  should  be altogether one way or the other. It was the same conflicting emotion that made her desire to appear a delicate and high-bred lady
with boys and to be, as well, a hoyden who was not above a few kisses.

"Where's Ellen this morning?" asked Mrs. Tarleton.

"She's after discharging our overseer and stayed home to go over the accounts with him. Where's himself and the lads?"

"Oh,  they rode over to Twelve Oaks hours ago--to sample the punch and see if it was strong enough, I dare say, as if they wouldn't have from now
till  tomorrow  morning to do it! I'm going to ask John Wilkes to keep them overnight, even if he has to bed them down in the stable. Five men in
their cups are just too much for me. Up to three, I do very well but--"

Gerald hastily interrupted to change the subject. He could feel his own daughters snickering behind his back as they remembered in what condition
he had come home from the Wilkeses' last barbecue the autumn before.

"And why aren't you riding today, Mrs. Tarleton? Sure, you don't look yourself at all without Nellie. It's a stentor, you are."

"A  stentor, me ignorant broth of a boy!" cried Mrs. Tarleton, aping his brogue. "You mean a centaur. Stentor was a man with a voice like a brass
gong."

"Stentor or centaur, 'tis no matter," answered Gerald, unruffled by his error. "And 'tis a voice like brass you have, Ma'm, when you're urging on
the hounds, so it is."

"That's one on you, Ma," said Betty. "I told you you yelled like a Comanche whenever you saw a fox."

"But not as loud as you yell when Mammy washes your ears," returned Mrs. Tarleton. "And you sixteen! Well, as to why I'm not riding today, Nellie
foaled early this morning."

"Did she now!" cried Gerald with real interest, his Irishman's passion for horses shining in his eyes, and Scarlett again felt the sense of shock
in  comparing  her  mother  with Mrs. Tarleton. To Ellen, mares never foaled nor cows calved. In fact, hens almost didn't lay eggs. Ellen ignored
these matters completely. But Mrs. Tarleton had no such reticences.

"A little filly, was it?"

"No,  a  fine  little  stallion  with legs two yards long. You must ride over and see him, Mr. O'Hara. He's a real Tarleton horse. He's as red as
Hetty's curls."

"And looks a lot like Betty, too," said Camilla, and then disappeared shrieking amid a welter of skirts and pantalets and bobbing hats, as Betty,
who did have a long face, began pinching her.

"My  fillies  are  feeling  their  oats this morning," said Mrs. Tarleton. "They've been kicking up their heels ever since we heard the news this
morning about Ashley and that little cousin of his from Atlanta. What's her name? Melanie? Bless the child, she's a sweet little thing, but I can
never  remember  either  her name or her face. Our cook is the broad wife of the Wilkes butler, and he was over last night with the news that the
engagement  would  be  announced tonight and Cookie told us this morning. The girls are all excited about it, though I can't see why. Everybody's
known  for  years that Ashley would marry her, that is, if he didn't marry one of his Burr cousins from Macon. Just like Honey Wilkes is going to
marry Melanie's brother, Charles. Now, tell me, Mr. O'Hara, is it illegal for the Wilkes to marry outside of their family? Because if--"

Scarlett did not hear the rest of the laughing words. For one short instant, it was as though the sun had ducked behind a cool cloud, leaving the
world  in  shadow,  taking  the  color  out  of  things.  The freshly green foliage looked sickly, the dogwood pallid, and the flowering crab, so
beautifully  pink  a  moment  ago,  faded  and  dreary. Scarlett dug her fingers into the upholstery of the carriage and for a moment her parasol
wavered.  It  was  one thing to know that Ashley was engaged but it was another to hear people talk about it so casually. Then her courage flowed
strongly  back  and  the  sun  came  out  again and the landscape glowed anew. She knew Ashley loved her. That was certain. And she smiled as she
thought  how  surprised  Mrs.  Tarleton would be when no engagement was announced that night--how surprised if there were an elopement. And she'd
tell  neighbors what a sly boots Scarlett was to sit there and listen to her talk about Melanie when all the time she and Ashley-- She dimpled at
her own thoughts and Betty, who had been watching sharply the effect of her mother's words, sank back with a small puzzled frown.

"I  don't  care  what you say, Mr. O'Hara," Mrs. Tarleton was saying emphatically. "It's all wrong, this marrying of cousins. It's bad enough for
Ashley to be marrying the Hamilton child, but for Honey to be marrying that pale-looking Charles Hamilton--"

"Honey'll  never  catch  anybody else if she doesn't marry Charlie," said Randa, cruel and secure in her own popularity. "She's never had another
beau  except  him.  And  he's  never  acted  very  sweet  on  her, for all that they're engaged. Scarlett, you remember how he ran after you last
Christmas--"

"Don't  be  a  cat,  Miss,"  said her mother. "Cousins shouldn't marry, even second cousins. It weakens the strain. It isn't like horses. You can
breed  a  mare  to a brother or a sire to a daughter and get good results if you know your blood strains, but in people it just doesn't work. You
get good lines, perhaps, but no stamina. You--"

"Now, Ma'm, I'm taking issue with you on that! Can you name me better people than the Wilkes? And they've been intermarrying since Brian Boru was
a boy."

"And  high  time  they stopped it, for it's beginning to show. Oh, not Ashley so much, for he's a good-looking devil, though even he--But look at
those  two  washed-out-looking  Wilkes girls, poor things! Nice girls, of course, but washed out. And look at little Miss Melanie. Thin as a rail
and  delicate enough for the wind to blow away and no spirit at all. Not a notion of her own. 'No, Ma'm!' 'Yes, Ma'm!' That's all she has to say.
You see what I mean? That family needs new blood, fine vigorous blood like my red heads or your Scarlett. Now, don't misunderstand me. The Wilkes
are fine folks in their way, and you know I'm fond of them all, but be frank! They are overbred and inbred too, aren't they? They'll do fine on a
dry  track,  a fast track, but mark my words, I don't believe the Wilkes can run on a mud track. I believe the stamina has been bred out of them,
and  when  the emergency arises I don't believe they can run against odds. Dry-weather stock. Give me a big horse who can run in any weather! And
their  intermarrying has made them different from other folks around here. Always fiddling with the piano or sticking their heads in a book. I do
believe  Ashley would rather read than hunt! Yes, I honestly believe that, Mr. O'Hara! And just look at the bones on them. Too slender. They need
dams and sires with strength--"

"Ah-ah-hum,"  said Gerald, suddenly and guiltily aware that the conversation, a most interesting and entirely proper one to him, would seem quite
otherwise to Ellen. In fact, he knew she would never recover should she learn that her daughters had been exposed to so frank a conversation. But
Mrs. Tarleton was, as usual, deaf to all other ideas when pursuing her favorite topic, breeding, whether it be horses or humans.

"I  know what I'm talking about because I had some cousins who married each other and I give you my word their children all turned out as popeyed
as  bullfrogs, poor things. And when my family wanted me to marry a second cousin, I bucked like a colt. I said, 'No, Ma. Not for me. My children
will  all  have  spavins  and heaves.' Well, Ma fainted when I said that about spavins, but I stood firm and Grandma backed me up. She knew a lot
about  horse  breeding too, you see, and said I was right. And she helped me run away with Mr. Tarleton. And look at my children! Big and healthy
and not a sickly one or a runt among them, though Boyd is only five feet ten. Now, the Wilkes--"

"Not  meaning  to  change  the  subject, Ma'm," broke in Gerald hurriedly, for he had noticed Carreen's bewildered look and the avid curiosity on
Suellen's face and feared lest they might ask Ellen embarrassing questions which would reveal how inadequate a chaperon he was. Puss, he was glad
to notice, appeared to be thinking of other matters as a lady should.

Betty Tarleton rescued him from his predicament.

"Good Heavens, Ma, do let's get on!" she cried impatiently. "This sun is broiling me and I can just hear freckles popping out on my neck."

"Just  a minute, Ma'm, before you go," said Gerald. "But what have you decided to do about selling us the horses for the Troop? War may break any
day  now  and  the  boys want the matter settled. It's a Clayton County troop and it's Clayton County horses we want for them. But you, obstinate
creature that you are, are still refusing to sell us your fine beasts."

"Maybe there won't be any war," Mrs. Tarleton temporized, her mind diverted completely from the Wilkeses' odd marriage habits.

"Why, Ma'm, you can't--"

"Ma," Betty interrupted again, "can't you and Mr. O'Hara talk about the horses at Twelve Oaks as well as here?"

"That's  just  it, Miss Betty," said Gerald. "And I won't be keeping you but one minute by the clock. We'll be getting to Twelve Oaks in a little
bit,  and every man there, old and young, wanting to know about the horses. Ah, but it's breaking me heart to see such a fine pretty lady as your
mother so stingy with her beasts! Now, where's your patriotism, Mrs. Tarleton? Does the Confederacy mean nothing to you at all?"

"Ma," cried small Betsy, "Randa's sitting on my dress and I'm getting all wrinkled."

"Well,  push  Randa off you, Betsy, and hush. Now, listen to me, Gerald O'Hara," she retorted, her eyes beginning to snap. "Don't you go throwing
the Confederacy in my face! I reckon the Confederacy means as much to me as it does to you, me with four boys in the Troop and you with none. But
my boys can take care of themselves and my horses can't. I'd gladly give the horses free of charge if I knew they were going to be ridden by boys
I  know, gentlemen used to thoroughbreds. No, I wouldn't hesitate a minute. But let my beauties be at the mercy of back-woodsmen and Crackers who
are  used  to riding mules! No, sir! I'd have nightmares thinking they were being ridden with saddle galls and not groomed properly. Do you think
I'd let ignorant fools ride my tender-mouthed darlings and saw their mouths to pieces and beat them till their spirits were broken? Why, I've got
goose  flesh  this  minute,  just thinking about it! No, Mr. O'Hara, you're mighty nice to want my horses, but you'd better go to Atlanta and buy
some old plugs for your clodhoppers. They'll never know the difference."

"Ma,  can't we please go on?" asked Camilla, joining the impatient chorus. "You know mighty well you're going to end up giving them your darlings
anyhow. When Pa and the boys get through talking about the Confederacy needing them and so on, you'll cry and let them go."

Mrs. Tarleton grinned and shook the lines.

"I'll do no such thing," she said, touching the horses lightly with the whip. The carriage went off swiftly.

"That's a fine woman," said Gerald, putting on his hat and taking his place beside his own carriage. "Drive on, Toby. We'll wear her down and get
the  horses yet. Of course, she's right. She's right. If a man's not a gentleman, he's no business on a horse. The infantry is the place for him.
But more's the pity, there's not enough planters' sons in this County to make up a full troop. What did you say, Puss?"

"Pa,  please ride behind us or in front of us. You kick up such a heap of dust that we're choking," said Scarlett, who felt that she could endure
conversation  no  longer.  It  distracted  her from her thoughts and she was very anxious to arrange both her thoughts and her face in attractive
lines before reaching Twelve Oaks. Gerald obediently put spurs to his horse and was off in a red cloud after the Tarleton carriage where he could
continue his horsy conversation.



CHAPTER VI


They  crossed  the river and the carriage mounted the hill. Even before Twelve Oaks came into view Scarlett saw a haze of smoke hanging lazily in
the tops of the tall trees and smelled the mingled savory odors of burning hickory logs and roasting pork and mutton.

The  barbecue pits, which had been slowly burning since last night, would now be long troughs of rose-red embers, with the meats turning on spits
above  them  and the juices trickling down and hissing into the coals. Scarlett knew that the fragrance carried on the faint breeze came from the
grove  of  great  oaks  in  the  rear of the big house. John Wilkes always held his barbecues there, on the gentle slope leading down to the rose
garden,  a pleasant shady place and a far pleasanter place, for instance, than that used by the Calverts. Mrs. Calvert did not like barbecue food
and  declared that the smells remained in the house for days, so her guests always sweltered on a flat unshaded spot a quarter of a mile from the
house. But John Wilkes, famed throughout the state for his hospitality, really knew how to give a barbecue.

The  long trestled picnic tables, covered with the finest of the Wilkeses' linen, always stood under the thickest shade, with backless benches on
either  side;  and  chairs,  hassocks  and  cushions  from the house were scattered about the glade for those who did not fancy the benches. At a
distance great enough to keep the smoke away from the guests were the long pits where the meats cooked and the huge iron wash-pots from which the
succulent  odors  of  barbecue  sauce and Brunswick stew floated. Mr. Wilkes always had at least a dozen darkies busy running back and forth with
trays  to  serve  the guests. Over behind the barns there was always another barbecue pit, where the house servants and the coachmen and maids of
the  guests  had  their  own  feast  of  hoecakes  and  yams and chitterlings, that dish of hog entrails so dear to negro hearts, and, in season,
watermelons enough to satiate.

As  the  smell  of  crisp fresh pork came to her, Scarlett wrinkled her nose appreciatively, hoping that by the time it was cooked she would feel
some  appetite.  As it was she was so full of food and so tightly laced that she feared every moment she was going to belch. That would be fatal,
as only old men and very old ladies could belch without fear of social disapproval.

They  topped the rise and the white house reared its perfect symmetry before her, tall of columns, wide of verandas, flat of roof, beautiful as a
woman  is beautiful who is so sure of her charm that she can be generous and gracious to all. Scarlett loved Twelve Oaks even more than Tara, for
it had a stately beauty, a mellowed dignity that Gerald's house did not possess.

The  wide  curving  driveway  was  full  of  saddle horses and carriages and guests alighting and calling greetings to friends. Grinning negroes,
excited as always at a party, were leading the animals to the barnyard to be unharnessed and unsaddled for the day. Swarms of children, black and
white,  ran  yelling  about the newly green lawn, playing hopscotch and tag and boasting how much they were going to eat. The wide hall which ran
from  front  to  back  of  the  house  was  swarming  with  people,  and as the O'Hara carriage drew up at the front steps, Scarlett saw girls in
crinolines,  bright  as  butterflies, going up and coming down the stairs from the second floor, arms about each other's waists, stopping to lean
over the delicate handrail of the banisters, laughing and calling to young men in the hall below them.

Through  the  open  French  windows,  she caught glimpses of the older women seated in the drawing room, sedate in dark silks as they sat fanning
themselves  and  talking  of  babies  and  sicknesses and who had married whom and why. The Wilkes butler, Tom, was hurrying through the halls, a
silver tray in his hands, bowing and grinning, as he offered tall glasses to young men in fawn and gray trousers and fine ruffled linen shirts.

The  sunny  front  veranda  was  thronged  with guests. Yes, the whole County was here, thought Scarlett. The four Tarleton boys and their father
leaned  against the tall columns, the twins, Stuart and Brent, side by side inseparable as usual, Boyd and Tom with their father, James Tarleton.
Mr.  Calvert  was  standing  close by the side of his Yankee wife, who even after fifteen years in Georgia never seemed to quite belong anywhere.
Everyone  was  very  polite  and  kind to her because he felt sorry for her, but no one could forget that she had compounded her initial error of
birth  by  being  the  governess  of Mr. Calvert's children. The two Calvert boys, Raiford and Cade, were there with their dashing blonde sister,
Cathleen,  teasing  the  dark-faced  Joe Fontaine and Sally Munroe, his pretty bride-to-be. Alex and Tony Fontaine were whispering in the ears of
Dimity  Munroe  and  sending  her  into  gales  of giggles. There were families from as far as Lovejoy, ten miles away, and from Fayetteville and
Jonesboro,  a  few  even  from  Atlanta  and  Macon. The house seemed bursting with the crowd, and a ceaseless babble of talking and laughter and
giggles and shrill feminine squeaks and screams rose and fell.

On  the  porch steps stood John Wilkes, silver-haired, erect, radiating the quiet charm and hospitality that was as warm and never failing as the
sun  of  Georgia summer. Beside him Honey Wilkes, so called because she indiscriminately addressed everyone from her father to the field hands by
that endearment, fidgeted and giggled as she called greetings to the arriving guests.

Honey's  nervously obvious desire to be attractive to every man in sight contrasted sharply with her father's poise, and Scarlett had the thought
that perhaps there was something in what Mrs. Tarleton said, after all. Certainly the Wilkes men got the family looks. The thick deep-gold lashes
that  set  off  the  gray  eyes of John Wilkes and Ashley were sparse and colorless in the faces of Honey and her sister India. Honey had the odd
lashless look of a rabbit, and India could be described by no other word than plain.

India  was  nowhere  to be seen, but Scarlett knew she probably was in the kitchen giving final instructions to the servants. Poor India, thought
Scarlett, she's had so much trouble keeping house since her mother died that she's never had the chance to catch any beau except Stuart Tarleton,
and it certainly wasn't my fault if he thought I was prettier than she.

John  Wilkes  came  down the steps to offer his arm to Scarlett. As she descended from the carriage, she saw Suellen smirk and knew that she must
have picked out Frank Kennedy in the crowd.

If  I couldn't catch a better beau than that old maid in britches! she thought contemptuously, as she stepped to the ground and smiled her thanks
to John Wilkes.

Frank  Kennedy  was  hurrying  to  the  carriage  to assist Suellen, and Suellen was bridling in a way that made Scarlett want to slap her. Frank
Kennedy  might own more land than anyone in the County and he might have a very kind heart, but these things counted for nothing against the fact
that he was forty, slight and nervous and had a thin ginger-colored beard and an old-maidish, fussy way about him. However, remembering her plan,
Scarlett  smothered  her contempt and cast such a flashing smile of greeting at him that he stopped short, his arm outheld to Suellen and goggled
at Scarlett in pleased bewilderment.

Scarlett's  eyes searched the crowd for Ashley, even while she made pleasant small talk with John Wilkes, but he was not on the porch. There were
cries  of  greeting from a dozen voices and Stuart and Brent Tarleton moved toward her. The Munroe girls rushed up to exclaim over her dress, and
she  was  speedily  the  center of a circle of voices that rose higher and higher in efforts to be heard above the din. But where was Ashley? And
Melanie and Charles? She tried not to be obvious as she looked about and peered down the hall into the laughing group inside.

As she chattered and laughed and cast quick glances into the house and the yard, her eyes fell on a stranger, standing alone in the hall, staring
at  her  in  a  cool  impertinent way that brought her up sharply with a mingled feeling of feminine pleasure that she had attracted a man and an
embarrassed sensation that her dress was too low in the bosom. He looked quite old, at least thirty-five. He was a tall man and powerfully built.
Scarlett  thought  she  had never seen a man with such wide shoulders, so heavy with muscles, almost too heavy for gentility. When her eye caught
his,  he  smiled, showing animal-white teeth below a close-clipped black mustache. He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as
bold  and  black  as any pirate's appraising a galleon to be scuttled or a maiden to be ravished. There was a cool recklessness in his face and a
cynical  humor  in  his  mouth  as  he smiled at her, and Scarlett caught her breath. She felt that she should be insulted by such a look and was
annoyed  with  herself  because she did not feel insulted. She did not know who he could be, but there was undeniably a look of good blood in his
dark face. It showed in the thin hawk nose over the full red lips, the high forehead and the wide-set eyes.

She dragged her eyes away from his without smiling back, and he turned as someone called: "Rhett! Rhett Butler! Come here! I want you to meet the
most hardhearted girl in Georgia."

Rhett Butler? The name had a familiar sound, somehow connected with something pleasantly scandalous, but her mind was on Ashley and she dismissed
the thought.

"I  must  run  upstairs and smooth my hair," she told Stuart and Brent, who were trying to get her cornered from the crowd. "You boys wait for me
and don't run off with any other girl or I'll be furious."

She  could  see that Stuart was going to be difficult to handle today if she flirted with anyone else. He had been drinking and wore the arrogant
looking-for-a-fight expression that she knew from experience meant trouble. She paused in the hall to speak to friends and to greet India who was
emerging  from  the back of the house, her hair untidy and tiny beads of perspiration on her forehead. Poor India! It would be bad enough to have
pale  hair and eyelashes and a jutting chin that meant a stubborn disposition, without being twenty years old and an old maid in the bargain. She
wondered  if  India  resented  very  much her taking Stuart away from her. Lots of people said she was still in love with him, but then you could
never tell what a Wilkes was thinking about. If she did resent it, she never gave any sign of it, treating Scarlett with the same slightly aloof,
kindly courtesy she had always shown her.

Scarlett spoke pleasantly to her and started up the wide stairs. As she did, a shy voice behind her called her name and, turning, she saw Charles
Hamilton.  He  was  a  nice-looking boy with a riot of soft brown curls on his white forehead and eyes as deep brown, as clean and as gentle as a
collie  dog's.  He  was  well  turned  out  in  mustard-colored  trousers  and black coat and his pleated shirt was topped by the widest and most
fashionable  of  black  cravats. A faint blush was creeping over his face as she turned for he was timid with girls. Like most shy men he greatly
admired  airy,  vivacious,  always-at-ease girls like Scarlett. She had never given him more than perfunctory courtesy before, and so the beaming
smile of pleasure with which she greeted him and the two hands outstretched to his almost took his breath away.

"Why Charles Hamilton, you handsome old thing, you! I'll bet you came all the way down here from Atlanta just to break my poor heart!"

Charles  almost  stuttered  with excitement, holding her warm little hands in his and looking into the dancing green eyes. This was the way girls
talked  to  other  boys  but  never  to  him. He never knew why but girls always treated him like a younger brother and were very kind, but never
bothered  to  tease  him.  He had always wanted girls to flirt and frolic with him as they did with boys much less handsome and less endowed with
this  world's  goods  than he. But on the few occasions when this had happened he could never think of anything to say and he suffered agonies of
embarrassment  at  his  dumbness. Then he lay awake at night thinking of all the charming gallantries he might have employed; but he rarely got a
second chance, for the girls left him alone after a trial or two.

Even with Honey, with whom he had an unspoken understanding of marriage when he came into his property next fall, he was diffident and silent. At
times,  he  had an ungallant feeling that Honey's coquetries and proprietary airs were no credit to him, for she was so boy-crazy he imagined she
would use them on any man who gave her the opportunity. Charles was not excited over the prospect of marrying her, for she stirred in him none of
the emotions of wild romance that his beloved books had assured him were proper for a lover. He had always yearned to be loved by some beautiful,
dashing creature full of fire and mischief.

And here was Scarlett O'Hara teasing him about breaking her heart!

He  tried  to  think of something to say and couldn't, and silently he blessed her because she kept up a steady chatter which relieved him of any
necessity for conversation. It was too good to be true.

"Now,  you  wait  right  here  till  I  come back, for I want to eat barbecue with you. And don't you go off philandering with those other girls,
because  I'm  mighty  jealous,"  came the incredible words from red lips with a dimple on each side; and briskly black lashes swept demurely over
green eyes.

"I won't," he finally managed to breathe, never dreaming that she was thinking he looked like a calf waiting for the butcher.

Tapping  him lightly on the arm with her folded fan, she turned to start up the stairs and her eyes again fell on the man called Rhett Butler who
stood alone a few feet away from Charles. Evidently he had overheard the whole conversation, for he grinned up at her as maliciously as a tomcat,
and again his eyes went over her, in a gaze totally devoid of the deference she was accustomed to.

"God's  nightgown!"  said  Scarlett  to  herself  in indignation, using Gerald's favorite oath. "He looks as if--as if he knew what I looked like
without my shimmy," and, tossing her head, she went up the steps.

In  the  bedroom  where  the wraps were laid, she found Cathleen Calvert preening before the mirror and biting her lips to make them look redder.
There were fresh roses in her sash that matched her cheeks, and her cornflower-blue eyes were dancing with excitement.

"Cathleen," said Scarlett, trying to pull the corsage of her dress higher, "who is that nasty man downstairs named Butler?"

"My  dear, don't you know?" whispered Cathleen excitedly, a weather eye on the next room where Dilcey and the Wilkes girls' mammy were gossiping.
"I  can't  imagine how Mr. Wilkes must feel having him here, but he was visiting Mr. Kennedy in Jonesboro--something about buying cotton--and, of
course, Mr. Kennedy had to bring him along with him. He couldn't just go off and leave him."

"What is the matter with him?"

"My dear, he isn't received!"

"Not really!"

"No."

Scarlett digested this in silence, for she had never before been under the same roof with anyone who was not received. It was very exciting.

"What did he do?"

"Oh, Scarlett, he has the most terrible reputation. His name is Rhett Butler and he's from Charleston and his folks are some of the nicest people
there,  but  they won't even speak to him. Caro Rhett told me about him last summer. He isn't any kin to her family, but she knows all about him,
everybody  does.  He  was  expelled from West Point. Imagine! And for things too bad for Caro to know. And then there was that business about the
girl he didn't marry."

"Do tell me!"

"Darling,  don't  you  know  anything? Caro told me all about it last summer and her mama would die if she thought Caro even knew about it. Well,
this  Mr.  Butler  took a Charleston girl out buggy riding. I never did know who she was, but I've got my suspicions. She couldn't have been very
nice  or  she wouldn't have gone out with him in the late afternoon without a chaperon. And, my dear, they stayed out nearly all night and walked
home finally, saying the horse had run away and smashed the buggy and they had gotten lost in the woods. And guess what--"

"I can't guess. Tell me," said Scarlett enthusiastically, hoping for the worst.

"He refused to marry her the next day!"

"Oh," said Scarlett, her hopes dashed.

"He  said  he  hadn't--er--done  anything  to  her and he didn't see why he should marry her. And, of course, her brother called him out, and Mr.
Butler  said  he'd rather be shot than marry a stupid fool. And so they fought a duel and Mr. Butler shot the girl's brother and he died, and Mr.
Butler had to leave Charleston and now nobody receives him," finished Cathleen triumphantly, and just in time, for Dilcey came back into the room
to oversee the toilet of her charge.

"Did she have a baby?" whispered Scarlett in Cathleen's ear.

Cathleen shook her head violently. "But she was ruined just the same," she hissed back.

I  wish  I had gotten Ashley to compromise me, thought Scarlett suddenly. He'd be too much of a gentleman not to marry me. But somehow, unbidden,
she had a feeling of respect for Rhett Butler for refusing to marry a girl who was a fool.



Scarlett sat on a high rosewood ottoman, under the shade of a huge oak in the rear of the house, her flounces and ruffles billowing about her and
two  inches  of  green  morocco slippers--all that a lady could show and still remain a lady--peeping from beneath them. She had scarcely touched
plate  in her hands and seven cavaliers about her. The barbecue had reached its peak and the warm air was full of laughter and talk, the click of
silver  on porcelain and the rich heavy smells of roasting meats and redolent gravies. Occasionally when the slight breeze veered, puffs of smoke
from the long barbecue pits floated over the crowd and were greeted with squeals of mock dismay from the ladies and violent flappings of palmetto
fans.

Most  of  the  young ladies were seated with partners on the long benches that faced the tables, but Scarlett, realizing that a girl has only two
sides and only one man can sit on each of these sides, had elected to sit apart so she could gather about her as many men as possible.

Under  the arbor sat the married women, their dark dresses decorous notes in the surrounding color and gaiety. Matrons, regardless of their ages,
always  grouped  together  apart  from  the  bright-eyed  girls,  beaux and laughter, for there were no married belles in the South. From Grandma
Fontaine,  who  was  belching frankly with the privilege of her age, to seventeen-year-old Alice Munroe, struggling against the nausea of a first
pregnancy,  they  had  their  heads  together in the endless genealogical and obstetrical discussions that made such gatherings very pleasant and
instructive affairs.

Casting  contemptuous  glances  at them, Scarlett thought that they looked like a clump of fat crows. Married women never had any fun. It did not
occur  to  her  that  if she married Ashley she would automatically be relegated to arbors and front parlors with staid matrons in dull silks, as
staid  and  dull  as  they and not a part of the fun and frolicking. Like most girls, her imagination carried her just as far as the altar and no
further. Besides, she was too unhappy now to pursue an abstraction.

She  dropped  her  eyes  to her plate and nibbled daintily on a beaten biscuit with an elegance and an utter lack of appetite that would have won
Mammy's  approval.  For  all  that  she had a superfluity of beaux, she had never been more miserable in her life. In some way that she could not
understand,  her  plans  of  last  night  had failed utterly so far as Ashley was concerned. She had attracted other beaux by the dozens, but not
Ashley,  and  all  the  fears  of  yesterday afternoon were sweeping back upon her, making her heart beat fast and then slow, and color flame and
whiten in her cheeks.

Ashley  had  made  no  attempt  to join the circle about her, in fact she had not had a word alone with him since arriving, or even spoken to him
since  their first greeting. He had come forward to welcome her when she came into the back garden, but Melanie had been on his arm then, Melanie
who hardly came up to his shoulder.

She  was  a  tiny, frailly built girl, who gave the appearance of a child masquerading in her mother's enormous hoop skirts--an illusion that was
heightened  by  the  shy,  almost  frightened look in her too large brown eyes. She had a cloud of curly dark hair which was so sternly repressed
beneath  its  net  that no vagrant tendrils escaped, and this dark mass, with its long widow's peak, accentuated the heart shape of her face. Too
wide  across  the  cheek bones, too pointed at the chin, it was a sweet, timid face but a plain face, and she had no feminine tricks of allure to
make  observers  forget its plainness. She looked--and was--as simple as earth, as good as bread, as transparent as spring water. But for all her
plainness  of  feature  and  smallness  of stature, there was a sedate dignity about her movements that was oddly touching and far older than her
seventeen years.

Her  gray organdie dress, with its cherry-colored satin sash, disguised with its billows and ruffles how childishly undeveloped her body was, and
the yellow hat with long cherry streamers made her creamy skin glow. Her heavy earbobs with their long gold fringe hung down from loops of tidily
netted  hair, swinging close to her brown eyes, eyes that had the still gleam of a forest pool in winter when brown leaves shine up through quiet
water.

She had smiled with timid liking when she greeted Scarlett and told her how pretty her green dress was, and Scarlett had been hard put to be even
civil  in  reply,  so  violently did she want to speak alone with Ashley. Since then, Ashley had sat on a stool at Melanie's feet, apart from the
other  guests, and talked quietly with her, smiling the slow drowsy smile that Scarlett loved. What made matters worse was that under his smile a
little  sparkle  had come into Melanie's eyes, so that even Scarlett had to admit that she looked almost pretty. As Melanie looked at Ashley, her
plain face lit up as with an inner fire, for if ever a loving heart showed itself upon a face, it was showing now on Melanie Hamilton's.

Scarlett tried to keep her eyes from these two but could not, and after each glance she redoubled her gaiety with her cavaliers, laughing, saying
daring  things, teasing, tossing her head at their compliments until her earrings danced. She said "fiddle-dee-dee" many times, declared that the
truth  wasn't in any of them, and vowed that she'd never believe anything any man told her. But Ashley did not seem to notice her at all. He only
looked up at Melanie and talked on, and Melanie looked down at him with an expression that radiated the fact that she belonged to him.

So, Scarlett was miserable.

To  the  outward  eye,  never  had a girl less cause to be miserable. She was undoubtedly the belle of the barbecue, the center of attention. The
furore she was causing among the men, coupled with the heart burnings of the other girls, would have pleased her enormously at any other time.

Charles  Hamilton,  emboldened  by  her notice, was firmly planted on her right, refusing to be dislodged by the combined efforts of the Tarleton
twins.  He held her fan in one hand and his untouched plate of barbecue in the other and stubbornly refused to meet the eyes of Honey, who seemed
on  the  verge  of  an outburst of tears. Cade lounged gracefully on her left, plucking at her skirt to attract her attention and staring up with
smoldering  eyes  at  Stuart. Already the air was electric between him and the twins and rude words had passed. Frank Kennedy fussed about like a
hen  with  one  chick, running back and forth from the shade of the oak to the tables to fetch dainties to tempt Scarlett, as if there were not a
dozen  servants  there  for  that  purpose.  As a result, Suellen's sullen resentment had passed beyond the point of ladylike concealment and she
glowered  at Scarlett. Small Carreen could have cried because, for all Scarlett's encouraging words that morning, Brent had done no more than say
"Hello,  Sis"  and  jerk  her  hair  ribbon before turning his full attention to Scarlett. Usually he was so kind and treated her with a careless
deference that made her feel grown up, and Carreen secretly dreamed of the day when she would put her hair up and her skirts down and receive him
as  a real beau. And now it seemed that Scarlett had him. The Munroe girls were concealing their chagrin at the defection of the swarthy Fontaine
boys,  but  they  were  annoyed  at the way Tony and Alex stood about the circle, jockeying for a position near Scarlett should any of the others
arise from their places.

They  telegraphed their disapproval of Scarlett's conduct to Hetty Tarleton by delicately raised eyebrows. "Fast" was the only word for Scarlett.
Simultaneously,  the  three young ladies raised lacy parasols, said they had had quite enough to eat, thank you, and, laying light fingers on the
arms  of  the men nearest them, clamored sweetly to see the rose garden, the spring and the summerhouse. This strategic retreat in good order was
not lost on a woman present or observed by a man.

Scarlett  giggled  as  she saw three men dragged out of the line of her charms to investigate landmarks familiar to the girls from childhood, and
cut  her  eye  sharply  to  see  if Ashley had taken note. But he was playing with the ends of Melanie's sash and smiling up at her. Pain twisted
Scarlett's heart. She felt that she could claw Melanie's ivory skin till the blood ran and take pleasure in doing it.

As  her  eyes  wandered  from  Melanie, she caught the gaze of Rhett Butler, who was not mixing with the crowd but standing apart talking to John
Wilkes.  He  had  been  watching  her  and  when  she looked at him he laughed outright. Scarlett had an uneasy feeling that this man who was not
received  was  the  only  one  present  who knew what lay behind her wild gaiety and that it was affording him sardonic amusement. She could have
clawed him with pleasure too.

"If I can just live through this barbecue till this afternoon," she thought, "all the girls will go upstairs to take naps to be fresh for tonight
and  I'll  stay downstairs and get to talk to Ashley. Surely he must have noticed how popular I am." She soothed her heart with another hope: "Of
course,  he  has to be attentive to Melanie because, after all, she is his cousin and she isn't popular at all, and if he didn't look out for her
she'd just be a wallflower."

She took new courage at this thought and redoubled her efforts in the direction of Charles, whose brown eyes glowed down eagerly at her. It was a
wonderful  day  for  Charles,  a dream day, and he had fallen in love with Scarlett with no effort at all. Before this new emotion, Honey receded
into  a  dim  haze. Honey was a shrill-voiced sparrow and Scarlett a gleaming hummingbird. She teased him and favored him and asked him questions
and  answered  them herself, so that he appeared very clever without having to say a word. The other boys were puzzled and annoyed by her obvious
interest in him, for they knew Charles was too shy to hitch two consecutive words together, and politeness was being severely strained to conceal
their growing rage. Everyone was smoldering, and it would have been a positive triumph for Scarlett, except for Ashley.

When  the last forkful of pork and chicken and mutton had been eaten, Scarlett hoped the time had come when India would rise and suggest that the
ladies  retire  to  the  house.  It  was  two  o'clock  and the sun was warm overhead, but India, wearied with the three-day preparations for the
barbecue, was only too glad to remain sitting beneath the arbor, shouting remarks to a deaf old gentleman from Fayetteville.

A  lazy  somnolence  descended  on the crowd. The negroes idled about, clearing the long tables on which the food had been laid. The laughter and
talking  became  less  animated  and  groups  here  and  there fell silent. All were waiting for their hostess to signal the end of the morning's
festivities.  Palmetto  fans were wagging more slowly, and several gentlemen were nodding from the heat and overloaded stomachs. The barbecue was
over and all were content to take their ease while sun was at its height.

In  this  interval between the morning party and the evening's ball, they seemed a placid, peaceful lot. Only the young men retained the restless
energy  which  had filled the whole throng a short while before. Moving from group to group, drawling in their soft voices, they were as handsome
as  blooded  stallions  and as dangerous. The languor of midday had taken hold of the gathering, but underneath lurked tempers that could rise to
killing heights in a second and flare out as quickly. Men and women, they were beautiful and wild, all a little violent under their pleasant ways
and only a little tamed.

Some  time dragged by while the sun grew hotter, and Scarlett and others looked again toward India. Conversation was dying out when, in the lull,
everyone  in the grove heard Gerald's voice raised in furious accents. Standing some little distance away from the barbecue tables, he was at the
peak of an argument with John Wilkes.

"God's  nightgown,  man!  Pray  for a peaceable settlement with the Yankees after we've fired on the rascals at Fort Sumter? Peaceable? The South
should show by arms that she cannot be insulted and that she is not leaving the Union by the Union's kindness but by her own strength!"

"Oh, my God!" thought Scarlett. "He's done it! Now, we'll all sit here till midnight."

In an instant, the somnolence had fled from the lounging throng and something electric went snapping through the air. The men sprang from benches
and  chairs, arms in wide gestures, voices clashing for the right to be heard above other voices. There had been no talk of politics or impending
war  all  during  the  morning,  because  of  Mr.  Wilkes' request that the ladies should not be bored. But now Gerald had bawled the words "Fort
Sumter," and every man present forgot his host's admonition.

"Of  course  we'll  fight--"  "Yankee  thieves--" "We could lick them in a month--" "Why, one Southerner can lick twenty Yankees--" "Teach them a
lesson  they  won't soon forget--" "Peaceably? They won't let us go in peace--" "No, look how Mr. Lincoln insulted our Commissioners!" "Yes, kept
them  hanging  around  for  weeks--swearing he'd have Sumter evacuated!" "They want war; we'll make them sick of war--" And above all the voices,
Gerald's  boomed.  All  Scarlett could hear was "States' rights, by God!" shouted over and over. Gerald was having an excellent time, but not his
daughter.

Secession,  war--these words long since had become acutely boring to Scarlett from much repetition, but now she hated the sound of them, for they
meant  that the men would stand there for hours haranguing one another and she would have no chance to corner Ashley. Of course there would be no
war and the men all knew it. They just loved to talk and hear themselves talk.

Charles Hamilton had not risen with the others and, finding himself comparatively alone with Scarlett, he leaned closer and, with the daring born
of new love, whispered a confession.

"Miss  O'Hara--I--I  had  already  decided  that  if  we did fight, I'd go over to South Carolina and join a troop there. It's said that Mr. Wade
Hampton is organizing a cavalry troop, and of course I would want to go with him. He's a splendid person and was my father's best friend."

Scarlett  thought,  "What  am I supposed to do--give three cheers?" for Charles' expression showed that he was baring his heart's secrets to her.
She could think of nothing to say and so merely looked at him, wondering why men were such fools as to think women interested in such matters. He
took her expression to mean stunned approbation and went on rapidly, daringly--

"If I went--would--would you be sorry, Miss O'Hara?"

"I  should  cry  into  my  pillow  every night," said Scarlett, meaning to be flippant, but he took the statement at face value and went red with
pleasure.  Her  hand  was  concealed  in  the  folds of her dress and he cautiously wormed his hand to it and squeezed it, overwhelmed at his own
boldness and at her acquiescence.

"Would you pray for me?"

"What a fool!" thought Scarlett bitterly, casting a surreptitious glance about her in the hope of being rescued from the conversation.

"Would you?"

"Oh--yes, indeed, Mr. Hamilton. Three Rosaries a night, at least!"

Charles gave a swift look about him, drew in his breath, stiffened the muscles of his stomach. They were practically alone and he might never get
another such opportunity. And, even given another such Godsent occasion, his courage might fail him.

"Miss O'Hara--I must tell you something. I--I love you!"

"Um?" said Scarlett absently, trying to peer through the crowd of arguing men to where Ashley still sat talking at Melanie's feet.

"Yes!"  whispered  Charles, in a rapture that she had neither laughed, screamed nor fainted, as he had always imagined young girls did under such
circumstances.  "I  love you! You are the most--the most--" and he found his tongue for the first time in his life. "The most beautiful girl I've
ever  known  and  the sweetest and the kindest, and you have the dearest ways and I love you with all my heart. I cannot hope that you could love
anyone like me but, my dear Miss O'Hara, if you can give me any encouragement, I will do anything in the world to make you love me. I will--"

Charles stopped, for he couldn't think of anything difficult enough of accomplishment to really prove to Scarlett the depth of his feeling, so he
said simply: "I want to marry you."

Scarlett  came  back  to  earth with a jerk, at the sound of the word "marry." She had been thinking of marriage and of Ashley, and she looked at
Charles  with  poorly  concealed irritation. Why must this calf-like fool intrude his feelings on this particular day when she was so worried she
was about to lose her mind? She looked into the pleading brown eyes and she saw none of the beauty of a shy boy's first love, of the adoration of
an ideal come true or the wild happiness and tenderness that were sweeping through him like a flame. Scarlett was used to men asking her to marry
them,  men  much  more  attractive  than Charles Hamilton, and men who had more finesse than to propose at a barbecue when she had more important
matters  on her mind. She only saw a boy of twenty, red as a beet and looking very silly. She wished that she could tell him how silly he looked.
But  automatically,  the  words  Ellen  had  taught her to say in such emergencies rose to her lips and casting down her eyes, from force of long
habit,  she  murmured: "Mr. Hamilton, I am not unaware of the honor you have bestowed on me in wanting me to become your wife, but this is all so
sudden that I do not know what to say."

That was a neat way of smoothing a man's vanity and yet keeping him on the string, and Charles rose to it as though such bait were new and he the
first to swallow it.

"I would wait forever! I wouldn't want you unless you were quite sure. Please, Miss O'Hara, tell me that I may hope!"

"Um,"  said  Scarlett, her sharp eyes noting that Ashley, who had not risen to take part in the war talk, was smiling up at Melanie. If this fool
who  was  grappling  for her hand would only keep quiet for a moment, perhaps she could hear what they were saying. She must hear what they said.
What did Melanie say to him that brought that look of interest to his eyes?

Charles' words blurred the voices she strained to hear.

"Oh, hush!" she hissed at him, pinching his hand and not even looking at him.

Startled,  at  first  abashed,  Charles  blushed at the rebuff and then, seeing how her eyes were fastened on his sister, he smiled. Scarlett was
afraid  someone  might  hear  his  words.  She  was  naturally  embarrassed and shy, and in agony lest they be overheard. Charles felt a surge of
masculinity  such  as  he  had  never  experienced, for this was the first time in his life that he had ever embarrassed any girl. The thrill was
intoxicating.  He  arranged  his face in what he fancied was an expression of careless unconcern and cautiously returned Scarlett's pinch to show
that he was man of the world enough to understand and accept her reproof.

She did not even feel his pinch, for she could hear clearly the sweet voice that was Melanie's chief charm: "I fear I cannot agree with you about
Mr. Thackeray's works. He is a cynic. I fear he is not the gentleman Mr. Dickens is."

What a silly thing to say to a man, thought Scarlett, ready to giggle with relief. Why, she's no more than a bluestocking and everyone knows what
men  think  of  bluestockings.  . . . The way to get a man interested and to hold his interest was to talk about him, and then gradually lead the
conversation  around to yourself--and keep it there. Scarlett would have felt some cause for alarm if Melanie had been saying: "How wonderful you
are!" or "How do you ever think of such things? My little ole brain would bust if I even tried to think about them!" But here she was, with a man
at  her  feet, talking as seriously as if she were in church. The prospect looked brighter to Scarlett, so bright in fact that she turned beaming
eyes  on  Charles  and smiled from pure joy. Enraptured at this evidence of her affection, he grabbed up her fan and plied it so enthusiastically
her hair began to blow about untidily.

"Ashley,  you  have  not  favored  us  with  your opinion," said Jim Tarleton, turning from the group of shouting men, and with an apology Ashley
excused himself and rose. There was no one there so handsome, thought Scarlett, as she marked how graceful was his negligent pose and how the sun
gleamed on his gold hair and mustache. Even the older men stopped to listen to his words.

"Why,  gentlemen,  if  Georgia  fights,  I'll  go with her. Why else would I have joined the Troop?" he said. His gray eyes opened wide and their
drowsiness  disappeared  in  an  intensity that Scarlett had never seen before. "But, like Father, I hope the Yankees will let us go in peace and
that  there will be no fighting--" He held up his hand with a smile, as a babel of voices from the Fontaine and Tarleton boys began. "Yes, yes, I
know  we've  been  insulted and lied to--but if we'd been in the Yankees' shoes and they were trying to leave the Union, how would we have acted?
Pretty much the same. We wouldn't have liked it."

"There  he  goes  again," thought Scarlett. "Always putting himself in the other fellow's shoes." To her, there was never but one fair side to an
argument. Sometimes, there was no understanding Ashley.

"Let's  don't  be  too  hot  headed and let's don't have any war. Most of the misery of the world has been caused by wars. And when the wars were
over, no one ever knew what they were all about."

Scarlett  sniffed.  Lucky  for  Ashley  that  he had an unassailable reputation for courage, or else there'd be trouble. As she thought this, the
clamor of dissenting voices rose up about Ashley, indignant, fiery.

Under the arbor, the deaf old gentleman from Fayetteville punched India.

"What's it all about? What are they saying?"

"War!" shouted India, cupping her hand to his ear. "They want to fight the Yankees!"

"War,  is  it?" he cried, fumbling about him for his cane and heaving himself out of his chair with more energy than he had shown in years. "I'll
tell 'um about war. I've been there." It was not often that Mr. McRae had the opportunity to talk about war, the way his women folks shushed him.

He  stumped  rapidly  to  the  group,  waving  his  cane and shouting and, because he could not hear the voices about him, he soon had undisputed
possession of the field.

"You  fire-eating young bucks, listen to me. You don't want to fight. I fought and I know. Went out in the Seminole War and was a big enough fool
to go to the Mexican War, too. You all don't know what war is. You think it's riding a pretty horse and having the girls throw flowers at you and
coming  home  a hero. Well, it ain't. No, sir! It's going hungry, and getting the measles and pneumonia from sleeping in the wet. And if it ain't
measles and pneumonia, it's your bowels. Yes sir, what war does to a man's bowels--dysentery and things like that--"

The  ladies  were  pink with blushes. Mr. McRae was a reminder of a cruder era, like Grandma Fontaine and her embarrassingly loud belches, an era
everyone would like to forget.

"Run  get  your  grandpa,"  hissed  one  of  the  old  gentleman's  daughters to a young girl standing near by. "I declare," she whispered to the
fluttering  matrons  about  her, "he gets worse every day. Would you believe it, this very morning he said to Mary--and she's only sixteen: 'Now,
Missy  .  .  .'"  And  the voice went off into a whisper as the granddaughter slipped out to try to induce Mr. McRae to return to his seat in the
shade.

Of  all  the  group  that  milled  about under the trees, girls smiling excitedly, men talking impassionedly, there was only one who seemed calm.
Scarlett's eyes turned to Rhett Butler, who leaned against a tree, his hands shoved deep in his trouser pockets. He stood alone, since Mr. Wilkes
had  left  his side, and had uttered no word as the conversation grew hotter. The red lips under the close-clipped black mustache curled down and
there  was  a  glint  of  amused contempt in his black eyes--contempt, as if he listened to the braggings of children. A very disagreeable smile,
Scarlett  thought. He listened quietly until Stuart Tarleton, his red hair tousled and his eyes gleaming, repeated: "Why, we could lick them in a
month! Gentlemen always fight better than rabble. A month--why, one battle--"

"Gentlemen,"  said  Rhett  Butler, in a flat drawl that bespoke his Charleston birth, not moving from his position against the tree or taking his
hands from his pockets, "may I say a word?"

There was contempt in his manner as in his eyes, contempt overlaid with an air of courtesy that somehow burlesqued their own manners.

The group turned toward him and accorded him the politeness always due an outsider.

"Has  any  one of you gentlemen ever thought that there's not a cannon factory south of the Mason-Dixon Line? Or how few iron foundries there are
in  the  South?  Or  woolen  mills or cotton factories or tanneries? Have you thought that we would not have a single warship and that the Yankee
fleet  could  bottle  up  our harbors in a week, so that we could not sell our cotton abroad? But--of course--you gentlemen have thought of these
things."

"Why, he means the boys are a passel of fools!" thought Scarlett indignantly, the hot blood coming to her cheeks.

Evidently,  she  was  not  the  only one to whom this idea occurred, for several of the boys were beginning to stick out their chins. John Wilkes
casually  but  swiftly came back to his place beside the speaker, as if to impress on all present that this man was his guest and that, moreover,
there were ladies present.

"The  trouble  with  most  of  us  Southerners,"  continued Rhett Butler, "is that we either don't travel enough or we don't profit enough by our
travels.  Now,  of  course, all you gentlemen are well traveled. But what have you seen? Europe and New York and Philadelphia and, of course, the
ladies  have  been  to  Saratoga" (he bowed slightly to the group under the arbor). "You've seen the hotels and the museums and the balls and the
gambling houses. And you've come home believing that there's no place like the South. As for me, I was Charleston born, but I have spent the last
few  years  in  the  North."  His  white  teeth showed in a grin, as though he realized that everyone present knew just why he no longer lived in
Charleston, and cared not at all if they did know. "I have seen many things that you all have not seen. The thousands of immigrants who'd be glad
to  fight  for  the  Yankees  for food and a few dollars, the factories, the foundries, the shipyards, the iron and coal mines--all the things we
haven't got. Why, all we have is cotton and slaves and arrogance. They'd lick us in a month."

For a tense moment, there was silence. Rhett Butler removed a fine linen handkerchief from his coat pocket and idly flicked dust from his sleeve.
Then  an  ominous murmuring arose in the crowd and from under the arbor came a humming as unmistakable as that of a hive of newly disturbed bees.
Even  while  she  felt the hot blood of wrath still in her cheeks, something in Scarlett's practical mind prompted the thought that what this man
said  was  right, and it sounded like common sense. Why, she'd never even seen a factory, or known anyone who had seen a factory. But, even if it
were true, he was no gentleman to make such a statement--and at a party, too, where everyone was having a good time.

Stuart  Tarleton,  brows  lowering,  came forward with Brent close at his heels. Of course, the Tarleton twins had nice manners and they wouldn't
make  a  scene at a barbecue, even though tremendously provoked. Just the same, all the ladies felt pleasantly excited, for it was so seldom that
they actually saw a scene or a quarrel. Usually they had to hear of it third-hand.

"Sir," said Stuart heavily, "what do you mean?"

Rhett looked at him with polite but mocking eyes.

"I  mean,"  he  answered,  "what  Napoleon--perhaps  you've  heard of him?--remarked once, 'God is on the side of the strongest battalion!'" and,
turning  to  John  Wilkes, he said with courtesy that was unfeigned: "You promised to show me your library, sir. Would it be too great a favor to
ask to see it now? I fear I must go back to Jonesboro early this afternoon where a bit of business calls me."

He  swung about, facing the crowd, clicked his heels together and bowed like a dancing master, a bow that was graceful for so powerful a man, and
as  full  of impertinence as a slap in the face. Then he walked across the lawn with John Wilkes, his black head in the air, and the sound of his
discomforting laughter floated back to the group about the tables.

There  was  a startled silence and then the buzzing broke out again. India rose tiredly from her seat beneath the arbor and went toward the angry
Stuart  Tarleton.  Scarlett could not hear what she said, but the look in her eyes as she gazed up into his lowering face gave Scarlett something
like  a twinge of conscience. It was the same look of belonging that Melanie wore when she looked at Ashley, only Stuart did not see it. So India
did  love  him.  Scarlett  thought  for an instant that if she had not flirted so blatantly with Stuart at that political speaking a year ago, he
might  have  married India long ere this. But then the twinge passed with the comforting thought that it wasn't her fault if other girls couldn't
keep their men.

Finally  Stuart smiled down at India, an unwilling smile, and nodded his head. Probably India had been pleading with him not to follow Mr. Butler
and make trouble. A polite tumult broke out under the trees as the guests arose, shaking crumbs from laps. The married women called to nurses and
small  children  and  gathered  their  broods together to take their departure, and groups of girls started off, laughing and talking, toward the
house to exchange gossip in the upstairs bedrooms and to take their naps.

All  the  ladies except Mrs. Tarleton moved out of the back yard, leaving the shade of oaks and arbor to the men. She was detained by Gerald, Mr.
Calvert and the others who wanted an answer from her about the horses for the Troop.

Ashley strolled over to where Scarlett and Charles sat, a thoughtful and amused smile on his face.

"Arrogant devil, isn't he?" he observed, looking after Butler. "He looks like one of the Borgias."

Scarlett thought quickly but could remember no family in the County or Atlanta or Savannah by that name.

"I don't know them. Is he kin to them? Who are they?"

An  odd  look came over Charles' face, incredulity and shame struggling with love. Love triumphed as he realized that it was enough for a girl to
be sweet and gentle and beautiful, without having an education to hamper her charms, and he made swift answer: "The Borgias were Italians."

"Oh," said Scarlett, losing interest, "foreigners."

She  turned  her prettiest smile on Ashley, but for some reason he was not looking at her. He was looking at Charles, and there was understanding
in his face and a little pity.



Scarlett  stood  on  the landing and peered cautiously over the banisters into the hall below. It was empty. From the bedrooms on the floor above
came  an unending hum of low voices, rising and falling, punctuated with squeaks of laughter and, "Now, you didn't, really!" and "What did he say
then?"  On the beds and couches of the six great bedrooms, the girls were resting, their dresses off, their stays loosed, their hair flowing down
their  backs.  Afternoon  naps  were  a  custom of the country and never were they so necessary as on the all-day parties, beginning early in the
morning and culminating in a ball. For half an hour, the girls would chatter and laugh, and then servants would pull the shutters and in the warm
half-gloom the talk would die to whispers and finally expire in silence broken only by soft regular breathing.

Scarlett  had made certain that Melanie was lying down on the bed with Honey and Hetty Tarleton before she slipped into the hall and started down
the stairs. From the window on the landing, she could see the group of men sitting under the arbor, drinking from tall glasses, and she knew they
would remain there until late afternoon. Her eyes searched the group but Ashley was not among them. Then she listened and she heard his voice. As
she had hoped, he was still in the front driveway bidding good-by to departing matrons and children.

Her  heart in her throat, she went swiftly down the stairs. What if she should meet Mr. Wilkes? What excuse could she give for prowling about the
house when all the other girls were getting their beauty naps? Well, that had to be risked.

As  she  reached  the  bottom  step,  she heard the servants moving about in the dining room under the butler's orders, lifting out the table and
chairs  in  preparation  for  the dancing. Across the wide hall was the open door of the library and she sped into it noiselessly. She could wait
there until Ashley finished his adieux and then call to him when he came into the house.

The  library  was  in  semidarkness,  for the blinds had been drawn against the sun. The dim room with towering walls completely filled with dark
books  depressed  her.  It  was not the place which she would have chosen for a tryst such as she hoped this one would be. Large numbers of books
always  depressed  her, as did people who liked to read large numbers of books. That is--all people except Ashley. The heavy furniture rose up at
her  in the half-light, high-backed chairs with deep seats and wide arms, made for the tall Wilkes men, squatty soft chairs of velvet with velvet
hassocks  before  them  for  the  girls. Far across the long room before the hearth, the seven-foot sofa, Ashley's favorite seat, reared its high
back, like some huge sleeping animal.

She closed the door except for a crack and tried to make her heart beat more slowly. She tried to remember just exactly what she had planned last
night  to  say  to  Ashley,  but she couldn't recall anything. Had she thought up something and forgotten it--or had she only planned that Ashley
should  say  something  to her? She couldn't remember, and a sudden cold fright fell upon her. If her heart would only stop pounding in her ears,
perhaps  she  could  think  of  what to say. But the quick thudding only increased as she heard him call a final farewell and walk into the front
hall.

All  she  could  think of was that she loved him--everything about him, from the proud lift of his gold head to his slender dark boots, loved his
laughter  even  when  it  mystified her, loved his bewildering silences. Oh, if only he would walk in on her now and take her in his arms, so she
would  be  spared  the  need  of  saying  anything. He must love her--"Perhaps if I prayed--" She squeezed her eyes tightly and began gabbling to
herself "Hail Mary, full of grace--"

"Why,  Scarlett!"  said  Ashley's  voice, breaking in through the roaring in her ears and throwing her into utter confusion. He stood in the hall
peering at her through the partly opened door, a quizzical smile on his face.

"Who are you hiding from--Charles or the Tarletons?"

She  gulped. So he had noticed how the men had swarmed about her! How unutterably dear he was standing there with his eyes twinkling, all unaware
of  her  excitement.  She  could  not  speak,  but she put out a hand and drew him into the room. He entered, puzzled but interested. There was a
tenseness  about  her,  a  glow  in  her eyes that he had never seen before, and even in the dim light he could see the rosy flush on her cheeks.
Automatically he closed the door behind him and took her hand.

"What is it?" he said, almost in a whisper.

At  the  touch  of  his  hand,  she began to tremble. It was going to happen now, just as she had dreamed it. A thousand incoherent thoughts shot
through her mind, and she could not catch a single one to mold into a word. She could only shake and look up into his face. Why didn't he speak?

"What is it?" he repeated. "A secret to tell me?"

Suddenly  she  found her tongue and just as suddenly all the years of Ellen's teachings fell away, and the forthright Irish blood of Gerald spoke
from his daughter's lips.

"Yes--a secret. I love you."

For  an  instance  there was a silence so acute it seemed that neither of them even breathed. Then the trembling fell away from her, as happiness
and  pride surged through her. Why hadn't she done this before? How much simpler than all the ladylike maneuverings she had been taught. And then
her eyes sought his.

There was a look of consternation in them, of incredulity and something more--what was it? Yes, Gerald had looked that way the day his pet hunter
had broken his leg and he had had to shoot him. Why did she have to think of that now? Such a silly thought. And why did Ashley look so oddly and
say nothing? Then something like a well-trained mask came down over his face and he smiled gallantly.

"Isn't  it enough that you've collected every other man's heart here today?" he said, with the old, teasing, caressing note in his voice. "Do you
want to make it unanimous? Well, you've always had my heart, you know. You cut your teeth on it."

Something  was  wrong--all wrong! This was not the way she had planned it. Through the mad tearing of ideas round and round in her brain, one was
beginning to take form. Somehow--for some reason--Ashley was acting as if he thought she was just flirting with him. But he knew differently. She
knew he did.

"Ashley--Ashley--tell me--you must--oh, don't tease me now! Have I your heart? Oh, my dear, I lo--"

His hand went across her lips, swiftly. The mask was gone.

"You  must not say these things, Scarlett! You mustn't. You don't mean them. You'll hate yourself for saying them, and you'll hate me for hearing
them!"

She jerked her head away. A hot swift current was running through her.

"I  couldn't  ever  hate  you.  I tell you I love you and I know you must care about me because--" She stopped. Never before had she seen so much
misery in anyone's face. "Ashley, do you care--you do, don't you?"

"Yes," he said dully. "I care."

If he had said he loathed her, she could not have been more frightened. She plucked at his sleeve, speechless.

"Scarlett," he said, "can't we go away and forget that we have ever said these things?"

"No," she whispered. "I can't. What do you mean? Don't you want to--to marry me?"

He replied, "I'm going to marry Melanie."

Somehow  she  found  that she was sitting on the low velvet chair and Ashley, on the hassock at her feet, was holding both her hands in his, in a
hard  grip. He was saying things--things that made no sense. Her mind was quite blank, quite empty of all the thoughts that had surged through it
only a moment before, and his words made no more impression than rain on glass. They fell on unhearing ears, words that were swift and tender and
full of pity, like a father speaking to a hurt child.

The  sound  of  Melanie's name caught in her consciousness and she looked into his crystal-gray eyes. She saw in them the old remoteness that had
always baffled her--and a look of self-hatred.

"Father  is  to  announce  the  engagement tonight. We are to be married soon. I should have told you, but I thought you knew. I thought everyone
knew--had known for years. I never dreamed that you-- You've so many beaux. I thought Stuart--"

Life and feeling and comprehension were beginning to flow back into her.

"But you just said you cared for me."

His warm hands hurt hers.

"My dear, must you make me say things that will hurt you?"

Her silence pressed him on.

"How can I make you see these things, my dear. You who are so young and unthinking that you do not know what marriage means."

"I know I love you."

"Love isn't enough to make a successful marriage when two people are as different as we are. You would want all of a man, Scarlett, his body, his
heart, his soul, his thoughts. And if you did not have them, you would be miserable. And I couldn't give you all of me. I couldn't give all of me
to  anyone.  And  I  would  not want all of your mind and your soul. And you would be hurt, and then you would come to hate me--how bitterly! You
would hate the books I read and the music I loved, because they took me away from you even for a moment. And I--perhaps I--"

"Do you love her?"

"She is like me, part of my blood, and we understand each other. Scarlett! Scarlett! Can't I make you see that a marriage can't go on in any sort
of peace unless the two people are alike?"

Some  one else had said that: "Like must marry like or there'll be no happiness." Who was it? It seemed a million years since she had heard that,
but it still did not make sense.

"But you said you cared."

"I shouldn't have said it."

Somewhere in her brain, a slow fire rose and rage began to blot out everything else.

"Well, having been cad enough to say it--"

His face went white.

"I  was  a  cad  to say it, as I'm going to marry Melanie. I did you a wrong and Melanie a greater one. I should not have said it, for I knew you
wouldn't  understand.  How  could  I help caring for you--you who have all the passion for life that I have not? You who can love and hate with a
violence impossible to me? Why you are as elemental as fire and wind and wild things and I--"

She  thought  of  Melanie  and  saw suddenly her quiet brown eyes with their far-off look, her placid little hands in their black lace mitts, her
gentle  silences.  And  then her rage broke, the same rage that drove Gerald to murder and other Irish ancestors to misdeeds that cost them their
necks. There was nothing in her now of the well-bred Robillards who could bear with white silence anything the world might cast.

"Why  don't  you say it, you coward! You're afraid to marry me! You'd rather live with that stupid little fool who can't open her mouth except to
say 'Yes' or 'No' and raise a passel of mealy-mouthed brats just like her! Why--"

"You must not say these things about Melanie!"

"'I mustn't' be damned to you! Who are you to tell me I mustn't? You coward, you cad, you-- You made me believe you were going to marry me--"

"Be fair," his voice pleaded. "Did I ever--"

She  did  not  want to be fair, although she knew what he said was true. He had never once crossed the borders of friendliness with her and, when
she  thought  of  this  fresh  anger  rose,  the anger of hurt pride and feminine vanity. She had run after him and he would have none of her. He
preferred a whey-faced little fool like Melanie to her. Oh, far better that she had followed Ellen and Mammy's precepts and never, never revealed
that she even liked him--better anything than to be faced with this scorching shame!

She  sprang  to her feet, her hands clenched and he rose towering over her, his face full of the mute misery of one forced to face realities when
realities are agonies.

"I shall hate you till I die, you cad--you lowdown--lowdown--" What was the word she wanted? She could not think of any word bad enough.

"Scarlett--please--"

He  put  out  his hand toward her and, as he did, she slapped him across the face with all the strength she had. The noise cracked like a whip in
the still room and suddenly her rage was gone, and there was desolation in her heart.

The  red mark of her hand showed plainly on his white tired face. He said nothing but lifted her limp hand to his lips and kissed it. Then he was
gone before she could speak again, closing the door softly behind him.

She  sat  down  again very suddenly, the reaction from her rage making her knees feel weak. He was gone and the memory of his stricken face would
haunt her till she died.

She  heard the soft muffled sound of his footsteps dying away down the long hall, and the complete enormity of her actions came over her. She had
lost  him  forever. Now he would hate her and every time he looked at her he would remember how she threw herself at him when he had given her no
encouragement at all.

"I'm  as  bad  as  Honey Wilkes," she thought suddenly, and remembered how everyone, and she more than anyone else, had laughed contemptuously at
Honey's  forward conduct. She saw Honey's awkward wigglings and heard her silly titters as she hung onto boys' arms, and the thought stung her to
new  rage,  rage  at herself, at Ashley, at the world. Because she hated herself, she hated them all with the fury of the thwarted and humiliated
love  of  sixteen.  Only  a  little  true  tenderness  had  been  mixed into her love. Mostly it had been compounded out of vanity and complacent
confidence in her own charms. Now she had lost and, greater than her sense of loss, was the fear that she had made a public spectacle of herself.
Had she been as obvious as Honey? Was everyone laughing at her? She began to shake at the thought.

Her  hand  dropped  to  a little table beside her, fingering a tiny china rose-bowl on which two china cherubs smirked. The room was so still she
almost  screamed to break the silence. She must do something or go mad. She picked up the bowl and hurled it viciously across the room toward the
fireplace. It barely cleared the tall back of the sofa and splintered with a little crash against the marble mantelpiece.

"This," said a voice from the depths of the sofa, "is too much."

Nothing  had  ever  startled  or  frightened her so much, and her mouth went too dry for her to utter a sound. She caught hold of the back of the
chair, her knees going weak under her, as Rhett Butler rose from the sofa where he had been lying and made her a bow of exaggerated politeness.

"It is bad enough to have an afternoon nap disturbed by such a passage as I've been forced to hear, but why should my life be endangered?"

He was real. He wasn't a ghost. But, saints preserve us, he had heard everything! She rallied her forces into a semblance of dignity.

"Sir, you should have made known your presence."

"Indeed?"  His  white  teeth gleamed and his bold dark eyes laughed at her. "But you were the intruder. I was forced to wait for Mr. Kennedy, and
feeling  that  I  was  perhaps persona non grata in the back yard, I was thoughtful enough to remove my unwelcome presence here where I thought I
would be undisturbed. But, alas!" he shrugged and laughed softly.

Her  temper  was  beginning to rise again at the thought that this rude and impertinent man had heard everything--heard things she now wished she
had died before she ever uttered.

"Eavesdroppers--" she began furiously.

"Eavesdroppers often hear highly entertaining and instructive things," he grinned. "From a long experience in eavesdropping, I--"

"Sir," she said, "you are no gentleman!"

"An apt observation," he answered airily. "And, you, Miss, are no lady." He seemed to find her very amusing, for he laughed softly again. "No one
can  remain  a  lady  after saying and doing what I have just overheard. However, ladies have seldom held any charms for me. I know what they are
thinking,  but  they  never have the courage or lack of breeding to say what they think. And that, in time, becomes a bore. But you, my dear Miss
O'Hara,  are  a girl of rare spirit, very admirable spirit, and I take off my hat to you. I fail to understand what charms the elegant Mr. Wilkes
can  hold  for  a  girl  of  your  tempestuous  nature. He should thank God on bended knee for a girl with your--how did he put it?--'passion for
living,' but being a poor-spirited wretch--"

"You aren't fit to wipe his boots!" she shouted in rage.

"And you were going to hate him all your life!" He sank down on the sofa and she heard him laughing.

If  she  could  have killed him, she would have done it. Instead, she walked out of the room with such dignity as she could summon and banged the
heavy door behind her.



She  went  up  the stairs so swiftly that when she reached the landing, she thought she was going to faint. She stopped, clutching the banisters,
her  heart hammering so hard from anger, insult and exertion that it seemed about to burst through her basque. She tried to draw deep breaths but
Mammy's  lacings  were  too  tight.  If  she  should  faint and they should find her here on the landing, what would they think? Oh, they'd think
everything. Ashley and that vile Butler man and those nasty girls who were so jealous! For once in her life, she wished that she carried smelling
salts,  like  the  other girls, but she had never even owned a vinaigrette. She had always been so proud of never feeling giddy. She simply could
not let herself faint now!

Gradually  the  sickening  feeling  began  to depart. In a minute, she'd feel all right and then she'd slip quietly into the little dressing room
adjoining India's room, unloose her stays and creep in and lay herself on one of the beds beside the sleeping girls. She tried to quiet her heart
and  fix  her face into more composed lines, for she knew she must look like a crazy woman. If any of the girls were awake, they'd know something
was wrong. And no one must ever, ever know that anything had happened.

Through  the  wide bay window on the lawn she could see the men still lounging in their chairs under the trees and in the shade of the arbor. How
she  envied  them!  How wonderful to be a man and never have to undergo miseries such as she had just passed through. As she stood watching them,
hot  eyed  and  dizzy,  she heard the rapid pounding of a horse's hooves on the front drive, the scattering of gravel and the sound of an excited
voice  calling  a  question  to  one  of the negroes. The gravel flew again and across her vision a man on horseback galloped over the green lawn
toward the lazy group under the trees.

Some  late-come guest, but why did he ride his horse across the turf that was India's pride? She could not recognize him, but as he flung himself
from  the  saddle  and clutched John Wilkes' arm, she could see that there was excitement in every line of him. The crowd swarmed about him, tall
glasses  and  palmetto  fans  abandoned  on tables and on the ground. In spite of the distance, she could hear the hubbub of voices, questioning,
calling,  feel  the fever-pitch tenseness of the men. Then above the confused sounds Stuart Tarleton's voice rose, in an exultant shout "Yee-aay-
ee!" as if he were on the hunting field. And she heard for the first time, without knowing it, the Rebel yell.

As  she watched, the four Tarletons followed by the Fontaine boys broke from the group and began hurrying toward the stable, yelling as they ran,
"Jeems! You, Jeems! Saddle the horses!"

"Somebody's  house must have caught fire," Scarlett thought. But fire or no fire, her job was to get herself back into the bedroom before she was
discovered.

Her  heart  was quieter now and she tiptoed up the steps into the silent hall. A heavy warm somnolence lay over the house, as if it slept at ease
like  the  girls,  until  night  when it would burst into its full beauty with music and candle flames. Carefully, she eased open the door of the
dressing  room  and slipped in. Her hand was behind her, still holding the knob, when Honey Wilkes' voice, low pitched, almost in a whisper, came
to her through the crack of the opposite door leading into the bedroom.

"I think Scarlett acted as fast as a girl could act today."

Scarlett  felt  her  heart  begin  its  mad  racing  again  and  she  clutched her hand against it unconsciously, as if she would squeeze it into
submission.  "Eavesdroppers often hear highly instructive things," jibed a memory. Should she slip out again? Or make herself known and embarrass
Honey as she deserved? But the next voice made her pause. A team of mules could not have dragged her away when she heard Melanie's voice.

"Oh, Honey, no! Don't be unkind. She's just high spirited and vivacious. I thought her most charming."

"Oh," thought Scarlett, clawing her nails into her basque. "To have that mealymouthed little mess take up for me!"

It was harder to bear than Honey's out-and-out cattiness. Scarlett had never trusted any woman and had never credited any woman except her mother
with  motives  other  than selfish ones. Melanie knew she had Ashley securely, so she could well afford to show such a Christian spirit. Scarlett
felt  it  was  just  Melanie's way of parading her conquest and getting credit for being sweet at the same time. Scarlett had frequently used the
same trick herself when discussing other girls with men, and it had never failed to convince foolish males of her sweetness and unselfishness.

"Well, Miss," said Honey tartly, her voice rising, "you must be blind."

"Hush, Honey," hissed the voice of Sally Munroe. "They'll hear you all over the house!"

Honey lowered her voice but went on.

"Well,  you  saw  how  she was carrying on with every man she could get hold of--even Mr. Kennedy and he's her own sister's beau. I never saw the
like! And she certainly was going after Charles." Honey giggled self-consciously. "And you know, Charles and I--"

"Are you really?" whispered voices excitedly.

"Well, don't tell anybody, girls--not yet!"

There  were  more  gigglings and the bed springs creaked as someone squeezed Honey. Melanie murmured something about how happy she was that Honey
would be her sister.

"Well,  I  won't  be  happy  to  have  Scarlett  for  my sister, because she's a fast piece if ever I saw one," came the aggrieved voice of Hefty
Tarleton. "But she's as good as engaged to Stuart. Brent says she doesn't give a rap about him, but, of course, Brent's crazy about her, too."

"If you should ask me," said Honey with mysterious importance, "there's only one person she does give a rap about. And that's Ashley!"

As  the  whisperings  merged  together violently, questioning, interrupting, Scarlett felt herself go cold with fear and humiliation. Honey was a
fool,  a  silly, a simpleton about men, but she had a feminine instinct about other women that Scarlett had underestimated. The mortification and
hurt  pride  that  she  had suffered in the library with Ashley and with Rhett Butler were pin pricks to this. Men could be trusted to keep their
mouths  shut,  even  men  like  Mr.  Butler, but with Honey Wilkes giving tongue like a hound in the field, the entire County would know about it
before  six  o'clock.  And Gerald had said only last night that he wouldn't be having the County laughing at his daughter. And how they would all
laugh now! Clammy perspiration, starting under her armpits, began to creep down her ribs.

Melanie's voice, measured and peaceful, a little reproving, rose above the others.

"Honey, you know that isn't so. And it's so unkind."

"It is too, Melly, and if you weren't always so busy looking for the good in people that haven't got any good in them, you'd see it. And I'm glad
it's  so.  It  serves her right. All Scarlett O'Hara has ever done has been to stir up trouble and try to get other girls' beaux. You know mighty
well she took Stuart from India and she didn't want him. And today she tried to take Mr. Kennedy and Ashley and Charles--"

"I must get home!" thought Scarlett. "I must get home!"

If she could only be transferred by magic to Tara and to safety. If she could only be with Ellen, just to see her, to hold onto her skirt, to cry
and  pour  out  the  whole  story  in her lap. If she had to listen to another word, she'd rush in and pull out Honey's straggly pale hair in big
handfuls  and spit on Melanie Hamilton to show her just what she thought of her charity. But she'd already acted common enough today, enough like
white trash--that was where all her trouble lay.

She pressed her hands hard against her skirts, so they would not rustle and backed out as stealthily as an animal. Home, she thought, as she sped
down the hall, past the closed doors and still rooms, I must go home.

She  was already on the front porch when a new thought brought her up sharply--she couldn't go home! She couldn't run away! She would have to see
it through, bear all the malice of the girls and her own humiliation and heartbreak. To run away would only give them more ammunition.

She  pounded  her clenched fist against the tall white pillar beside her, and she wished that she were Samson, so that she could pull down all of
Twelve Oaks and destroy every person in it. She'd make them sorry. She'd show them. She didn't quite see how she'd show them, but she'd do it all
the same. She'd hurt them worse than they hurt her.

For  the  moment,  Ashley as Ashley was forgotten. He was not the tall drowsy boy she loved but part and parcel of the Wilkeses, Twelve Oaks, the
County--and  she  hated  them  all  because they laughed. Vanity was stronger than love at sixteen and there was no room in her hot heart now for
anything but hate.

"I  won't  go  home," she thought. "I'll stay here and I'll make them sorry. And I'll never tell Mother. No, I'll never tell anybody." She braced
herself to go back into the house, to reclimb the stairs and go into another bedroom.

As  she  turned,  she saw Charles coming into the house from the other end of the long hall. When he saw her, he hurried toward her. His hair was
tousled and his face near geranium with excitement.

"Do you know what's happened?" he cried, even before he reached her. "Have you heard? Paul Wilson just rode over from Jonesboro with the news!"

He paused, breathless, as he came up to her. She said nothing and only stared at him.

"Mr. Lincoln has called for men, soldiers--I mean volunteers--seventy-five thousand of them!"

Mr.  Lincoln again! Didn't men ever think about anything that really mattered? Here was this fool expecting her to be excited about Mr. Lincoln's
didoes when her heart was broken and her reputation as good as ruined.

Charles stared at her. Her face was paper white and her narrow eyes blazing like emeralds. He had never seen such fire in any girl's face, such a
glow in anyone's eyes.

"I'm  so  clumsy,"  he  said.  "I should have told you more gently. I forgot how delicate ladies are. I'm sorry I've upset you so. You don't feel
faint, do you? Can I get you a glass of water?"

"No," she said, and managed a crooked smile.

"Shall we go sit on the bench?" he asked, taking her arm.

She  nodded  and he carefully handed her down the front steps and led her across the grass to the iron bench beneath the largest oak in the front
yard. How fragile and tender women are, he thought, the mere mention of war and harshness makes them faint. The idea made him feel very masculine
and  he was doubly gentle as he seated her. She looked so strangely, and there was a wild beauty about her white face that set his heart leaping.
Could  it  be  that she was distressed by the thought that he might go to the war? No, that was too conceited for belief. But why did she look at
him  so oddly? And why did her hands shake as they fingered her lace handkerchief. And her thick sooty lashes--they were fluttering just like the
eyes of girls in romances he had read, fluttering with timidity and love.

He  cleared his throat three times to speak and failed each time. He dropped his eyes because her own green ones met his so piercingly, almost as
if she were not seeing him.

"He has a lot of money," she was thinking swiftly, as a thought and a plan went through her brain. "And he hasn't any parents to bother me and he
lives in Atlanta. And if I married him right away, it would show Ashley that I didn't care a rap--that I was only flirting with him. And it would
just  kill  Honey.  She'd  never,  never catch another beau and everybody'd laugh fit to die at her. And it would hurt Melanie, because she loves
Charles  so  much. And it would hurt Stu and Brent--" She didn't quite know why she wanted to hurt them, except that they had catty sisters. "And
they'd  all  be  sorry  when  I  came back here to visit in a fine carriage and with lots of pretty clothes and a house of my own. And they would
never, never laugh at me."

"Of course, it will mean fighting," said Charles, after several more embarrassed attempts. "But don't you fret, Miss Scarlett, it'll be over in a
month  and we'll have them howling. Yes, sir! Howling! I wouldn't miss it for anything. I'm afraid there won't be much of a ball tonight, because
the Troop is going to meet at Jonesboro. The Tarleton boys have gone to spread the news. I know the ladies will be sorry."

She said, "Oh," for want of anything better, but it sufficed.

Coolness  was  beginning to come back to her and her mind was collecting itself. A frost lay over all her emotions and she thought that she would
never  feel  anything warmly again. Why not take this pretty, flushed boy? He was as good as anyone else and she didn't care. No, she could never
care about anything again, not if she lived to be ninety.

"I can't decide now whether to go with Mr. Wade Hampton's South Carolina Legion or with the Atlanta Gate City Guard."

She said, "Oh," again and their eyes met and the fluttering lashes were his undoing.

"Will  you  wait  for  me,  Miss  Scarlett? It--it would be Heaven just knowing that you were waiting for me until after we licked them!" He hung
breathless  on  her  words,  watching  the  way  her lips curled up at the corners, noting for the first time the shadows about these corners and
thinking what it would mean to kiss them. Her hand, with palm clammy with perspiration, slid into his.

"I wouldn't want to wait," she said and her eyes were veiled.

He  sat  clutching  her  hand,  his mouth wide open. Watching him from under her lashes, Scarlett thought detachedly that he looked like a gigged
frog. He stuttered several times, closed his mouth and opened it again, and again became geranium colored.

"Can you possibly love me?"

She  said nothing but looked down into her lap, and Charles was thrown into new states of ecstasy and embarrassment. Perhaps a man should not ask
a  girl  such  a  question.  Perhaps  it  would be unmaidenly for her to answer it. Having never possessed the courage to get himself into such a
situation before, Charles was at a loss as to how to act. He wanted to shout and to sing and to kiss her and to caper about the lawn and then run
tell everyone, black and white, that she loved him. But he only squeezed her hand until he drove her rings into the flesh.

"You will marry me soon, Miss Scarlett?"

"Um," she said, fingering a fold of her dress.

"Shall we make it a double wedding with Mel--"

"No,"  she  said  quickly,  her eyes glinting up at him ominously. Charles knew again that he had made an error. Of course, a girl wanted her own
wedding--not  shared  glory.  How kind she was to overlook his blunderings. If it were only dark and he had the courage of shadows and could kiss
her hand and say the things he longed to say.

"When may I speak to your father?"

"The sooner the better," she said, hoping that perhaps he would release the crushing pressure on her rings before she had to ask him to do it.

He  leaped  up  and  for a moment she thought he was going to cut a caper, before dignity claimed him. He looked down at her radiantly, his whole
clean  simple  heart  in  his eyes. She had never had anyone look at her thus before and would never have it from any other man, but in her queer
detachment she only thought that he looked like a calf.

"I'll  go  now  and find your father," he said, smiling all over his face. "I can't wait. Will you excuse me--dear?" The endearment came hard but
having said it once, he repeated it again with pleasure.

"Yes," she said. "I'll wait here. It's so cool and nice here."

He  went off across the lawn and disappeared around the house, and she was alone under the rustling oak. From the stables, men were streaming out
on  horseback,  negro servants riding hard behind their masters. The Munroe boys tore past waving their hats, and the Fontaines and Calverts went
down  the  road yelling. The four Tarletons charged across the lawn by her and Brent shouted: "Mother's going to give us the horses! Yee-aay-ee!"
Turf flew and they were gone, leaving her alone again.

The  white  house  reared  its  tall  columns before her, seeming to withdraw with dignified aloofness from her. It would never be her house now.
Ashley  would  never carry her over the threshold as his bride. Oh, Ashley, Ashley! What have I done? Deep in her, under layers of hurt pride and
cold  practicality,  something stirred hurtingly. An adult emotion was being born, stronger than her vanity or her willful selfishness. She loved
Ashley and she knew she loved him and she had never cared so much as in that instant when she saw Charles disappearing around the curved graveled
walk.



CHAPTER VII


Within  two  weeks  Scarlett  had become a wife, and within two months more she was a widow. She was soon released from the bonds she had assumed
with  so  much  haste  and  so  little thought, but she was never again to know the careless freedom of her unmarried days. Widowhood had crowded
closely on the heels of marriage but, to her dismay, motherhood soon followed.

In  after years when she thought of those last days of April, 1861, Scarlett could never quite remember details. Time and events were telescoped,
jumbled  together like a nightmare that had no reality or reason. Till the day she died there would be blank spots in her memories of those days.
Especially  vague  were  her recollections of the time between her acceptance of Charles and her wedding. Two weeks! So short an engagement would
have been impossible in times of peace. Then there would have been a decorous interval of a year or at least six months. But the South was aflame
with  war,  events  roared along as swiftly as if carried by a mighty wind and the slow tempo of the old days was gone. Ellen had wrung her hands
and  counseled  delay,  in order that Scarlett might think the matter over at greater length. But to her pleadings, Scarlett turned a sullen face
and a deaf ear. Marry she would! and quickly too. Within two weeks.

Learning  that  Ashley's wedding had been moved up from the autumn to the first of May, so he could leave with the Troop as soon as it was called
into  service,  Scarlett set the date of her wedding for the day before his. Ellen protested but Charles pleaded with new-found eloquence, for he
was  impatient  to  be off to South Carolina to join Wade Hampton's Legion, and Gerald sided with the two young people. He was excited by the war
fever  and  pleased  that  Scarlett  had  made  so  good  a  match, and who was he to stand in the way of young love when there was a war? Ellen,
distracted,  finally  gave  in  as  other  mothers  throughout  the South were doing. Their leisured world had been turned topsy-turvy, and their
pleadings, prayers and advice availed nothing against the powerful forces sweeping them along.

The  South was intoxicated with enthusiasm and excitement. Everyone knew that one battle would end the war and every young man hastened to enlist
before  the  war should end--hastened to marry his sweetheart before he rushed off to Virginia to strike a blow at the Yankees. There were dozens
of  war  weddings  in  the  County  and  there was little time for the sorrow of parting, for everyone was too busy and excited for either solemn
thoughts  or  tears. The ladies were making uniforms, knitting socks and rolling bandages, and the men were drilling and shooting. Train loads of
troops passed through Jonesboro daily on their way north to Atlanta and Virginia. Some detachments were gaily uniformed in the scarlets and light
blues  and  greens  of  select  social-militia  companies;  some  small  groups  were in homespun and coonskin caps; others, ununiformed, were in
broadcloth  and  fine  linen;  all  were half-drilled, half-armed, wild with excitement and shouting as though en route to a picnic. The sight of
these  men  threw  the County boys into a panic for fear the war would be over before they could reach Virginia, and preparations for the Troop's
departure were speeded.

In  the  midst  of this turmoil, preparations went forward for Scarlett's wedding and, almost before she knew it, she was clad in Ellen's wedding
dress  and  veil,  coming down the wide stairs of Tara on her father's arm, to face a house packed full with guests. Afterward she remembered, as
from  a  dream,  the hundreds of candles flaring on the walls, her mother's face, loving, a little bewildered, her lips moving in a silent prayer
for  her  daughter's  happiness,  Gerald flushed with brandy and pride that his daughter was marrying both money, a fine name and an old one--and
Ashley, standing at the bottom of the steps with Melanie's arm through his.

When  she  saw  the  look  on  his  face,  she thought: "This can't be real. It can't be. It's a nightmare. I'll wake up and find it's all been a
nightmare. I mustn't think of it now, or I'll begin screaming in front of all these people. I can't think now. I'll think later, when I can stand
it--when I can't see his eyes."

It  was  all  very dreamlike, the passage through the aisle of smiling people, Charles' scarlet face and stammering voice and her own replies, so
startlingly  clear,  so  cold.  And the congratulations afterward and the kissing and the toasts and the dancing--all, all like a dream. Even the
feel of Ashley's kiss upon her cheek, even Melanie's soft whisper, "Now, we're really and truly sisters," were unreal. Even the excitement caused
by the swooning spell that overtook Charles' plump emotional aunt, Miss Pittypat Hamilton, had the quality of a nightmare.

But  when the dancing and toasting were finally ended and the dawn was coming, when all the Atlanta guests who could be crowded into Tara and the
overseer's  house  had  gone  to sleep on beds, sofas and pallets on the floor and all the neighbors had gone home to rest in preparation for the
wedding  at  Twelve  Oaks  the  next  day, then the dreamlike trance shattered like crystal before reality. The reality was the blushing Charles,
emerging from her dressing room in his nightshirt, avoiding the startled look she gave him over the high-pulled sheet.

Of  course, she knew that married people occupied the same bed but she had never given the matter a thought before. It seemed very natural in the
case  of her mother and father, but she had never applied it to herself. Now for the first time since the barbecue she realized just what she had
brought on herself. The thought of this strange boy whom she hadn't really wanted to marry getting into bed with her, when her heart was breaking
with an agony of regret at her hasty action and the anguish of losing Ashley forever, was too much to be borne. As he hesitatingly approached the
bed she spoke in a hoarse whisper.

"I'll scream out loud if you come near me. I will! I will--at the top of my voice! Get away from me! Don't you dare touch me!"

So  Charles  Hamilton  spent  his wedding night in an armchair in the corner, not too unhappily, for he understood, or thought he understood, the
modesty  and  delicacy  of  his  bride.  He  was  willing  to wait until her fears subsided, only--only-- He sighed as he twisted about seeking a
comfortable position, for he was going away to the war so very soon.

Nightmarish  as  her own wedding had been, Ashley's wedding was even worse. Scarlett stood in her apple-green "second-day" dress in the parlor of
Twelve  Oaks  amid  the  blaze  of  hundreds of candles, jostled by the same throng as the night before, and saw the plain little face of Melanie
Hamilton  glow into beauty as she became Melanie Wilkes. Now, Ashley was gone forever. Her Ashley. No, not her Ashley now. Had he ever been hers?
It  was  all so mixed up in her mind and her mind was so tired, so bewildered. He had said he loved her, but what was it that had separated them?
If  she  could  only  remember. She had stilled the County's gossiping tongue by marrying Charles, but what did that matter now? It had seemed so
important  once, but now it didn't seem important at all. All that mattered was Ashley. Now he was gone and she was married to a man she not only
did not love but for whom she had an active contempt.

Oh, how she regretted it all. She had often heard of people cutting off their noses to spite their faces but heretofore it had been only a figure
of speech. Now she knew just what it meant. And mingled with her frenzied desire to be free of Charles and safely back at Tara, an unmarried girl
again, ran the knowledge that she had only herself to blame. Ellen had tried to stop her and she would not listen.

So  she danced through the night of Ashley's wedding in a daze and said things mechanically and smiled and irrelevantly wondered at the stupidity
of people who thought her a happy bride and could not see that her heart was broken. Well, thank God, they couldn't see!

That night after Mammy had helped her undress and had departed and Charles had emerged shyly from the dressing room, wondering if he was to spend
a  second night in the horsehair chair, she burst into tears. She cried until Charles climbed into bed beside her and tried to comfort her, cried
without words until no more tears would come and at last she lay sobbing quietly on his shoulder.

If  there  had  not  been  a  war,  there would have been a week of visiting about the County, with balls and barbecues in honor of the two newly
married  couples  before they set off to Saratoga or White Sulphur for wedding trips. If there had not been a war, Scarlett would have had third-
day and fourth-day and fifth-day dresses to wear to the Fontaine and Calvert and Tarleton parties in her honor. But there were no parties now and
no  wedding trips. A week after the wedding Charles left to join Colonel Wade Hampton, and two weeks later Ashley and the Troop departed, leaving
the whole County bereft.

In  those  two  weeks,  Scarlett  never  saw Ashley alone, never had a private word with him. Not even at the terrible moment of parting, when he
stopped  by  Tara on his way to the train, did she have a private talk. Melanie, bonneted and shawled, sedate in newly acquired matronly dignity,
hung on his arm and the entire personnel of Tara, black and white, turned out to see Ashley off to the war.

Melanie  said:  "You  must  kiss Scarlett, Ashley. She's my sister now," and Ashley bent and touched her cheek with cold lips, his face drawn and
taut.  Scarlett  could hardly take any joy from that kiss, so sullen was her heart at Melly's prompting it. Melanie smothered her with an embrace
at parting.

"You  will  come  to  Atlanta and visit me and Aunt Pittypat, won't you? Oh, darling, we want to have you so much! We want to know Charlie's wife
better."

Five  weeks passed during which letters, shy, ecstatic, loving, came from Charles in South Carolina telling of his love, his plans for the future
when the war was over, his desire to become a hero for her sake and his worship of his commander, Wade Hampton. In the seventh week, there came a
telegram  from Colonel Hampton himself, and then a letter, a kind, dignified letter of condolence. Charles was dead. The colonel would have wired
earlier, but Charles, thinking his illness a trifling one, did not wish to have his family worried. The unfortunate boy had not only been cheated
of  the love he thought he had won but also of his high hopes of honor and glory on the field of battle. He had died ignominiously and swiftly of
pneumonia, following measles, without ever having gotten any closer to the Yankees than the camp in South Carolina.

In  due  time,  Charles'  son  was born and, because it was fashionable to name boys after their fathers' commanding officers, he was called Wade
Hampton  Hamilton. Scarlett had wept with despair at the knowledge that she was pregnant and wished that she were dead. But she carried the child
through  its  time  with  a  minimum  of  discomfort, bore him with little distress and recovered so quickly that Mammy told her privately it was
downright  common--ladies should suffer more. She felt little affection for the child, hide the fact though she might. She had not wanted him and
she resented his coming and, now that he was here, it did not seem possible that he was hers, a part of her.

Though  she  recovered  physically from Wade's birth in a disgracefully short time, mentally she was dazed and sick. Her spirits drooped, despite
the  efforts  of  the  whole  plantation to revive them. Ellen went about with a puckered, worried forehead and Gerald swore more frequently than
usual  and brought her useless gifts from Jonesboro. Even old Dr. Fontaine admitted that he was puzzled, after his tonic of sulphur, molasses and
herbs  failed  to  perk  her  up.  He  told Ellen privately that it was a broken heart that made Scarlett so irritable and listless by turns. But
Scarlett,  had  she wished to speak, could have told them that it was a far different and more complex trouble. She did not tell them that it was
utter boredom, bewilderment at actually being a mother and, most of all, the absence of Ashley that made her look so woebegone.

Her boredom was acute and ever present. The County had been devoid of any entertainment or social life ever since the Troop had gone away to war.
All  of  the  interesting  young  men  were  gone--the  four Tarletons, the two Calverts, the Fontaines, the Munroes and everyone from Jonesboro,
Fayetteville  and  Lovejoy  who  was  young  and  attractive. Only the older men, the cripples and the women were left, and they spent their time
knitting  and  sewing,  growing  more  cotton  and corn, raising more hogs and sheep and cows for the army. There was never a sight of a real man
except  when  the  commissary  troop  under  Suellen's  middle-aged  beau, Frank Kennedy, rode by every month to collect supplies. The men in the
commissary  were  not  very exciting, and the sight of Frank's timid courting annoyed her until she found it difficult to be polite to him. If he
and Suellen would only get it over with!

Even  if  the  commissary  troop  had been more interesting, it would not have helped her situation any. She was a widow and her heart was in the
grave.  At  least,  everyone thought it was in the grave and expected her to act accordingly. This irritated her for, try as she would, she could
recall  nothing about Charles except the dying-calf look on his face when she told him she would marry him. And even that picture was fading. But
she  was  a  widow  and  she  had  to  watch her behavior. Not for her the pleasures of unmarried girls. She had to be grave and aloof. Ellen had
stressed this at great length after catching Frank's lieutenant swinging Scarlett in the garden swing and making her squeal with laughter. Deeply
distressed,  Ellen had told her how easily a widow might get herself talked about. The conduct of a widow must be twice as circumspect as that of
a matron.

"And  God  only knows," thought Scarlett, listening obediently to her mother's soft voice, "matrons never have any fun at all. So widows might as
well be dead."

A widow had to wear hideous black dresses without even a touch of braid to enliven them, no flower or ribbon or lace or even jewelry, except onyx
mourning  brooches  or  necklaces made from the deceased's hair. And the black crepe veil on her bonnet had to reach to her knees, and only after
three  years of widowhood could it be shortened to shoulder length. Widows could never chatter vivaciously or laugh aloud. Even when they smiled,
it  must  be  a sad, tragic smile. And, most dreadful of all, they could in no way indicate an interest in the company of gentlemen. And should a
gentleman  be  so ill bred as to indicate an interest in her, she must freeze him with a dignified but well-chosen reference to her dead husband.
Oh,  yes,  thought  Scarlett, drearily, some widows do remarry eventually, when they are old and stringy. Though Heaven knows how they manage it,
with their neighbors watching. And then it's generally to some desperate old widower with a large plantation and a dozen children.

Marriage  was  bad enough, but to be widowed--oh, then life was over forever! How stupid people were when they talked about what a comfort little
Wade  Hampton  must be to her, now that Charles was gone. How stupid of them to say that now she had something to live for! Everyone talked about
how  sweet  it  was  that she had this posthumous token of her love and she naturally did not disabuse their minds. But that thought was farthest
from her mind. She had very little interest in Wade and sometimes it was difficult to remember that he was actually hers.

Every morning she woke up and for a drowsy moment she was Scarlett O'Hara again and the sun was bright in the magnolia outside her window and the
mockers  were  singing  and  the  sweet  smell of frying bacon was stealing to her nostrils. She was carefree and young again. Then she heard the
fretful hungry wail and always--always there was a startled moment when she thought: "Why, there's a baby in the house!" Then she remembered that
it was her baby. It was all very bewildering.

And  Ashley! Oh, most of all Ashley! For the first time in her life, she hated Tara, hated the long red road that led down the hill to the river,
hated  the red fields with springing green cotton. Every foot of ground, every tree and brook, every lane and bridle path reminded her of him. He
belonged to another woman and he had gone to the war, but his ghost still haunted the roads in the twilight, still smiled at her from drowsy gray
eyes  in  the shadows of the porch. She never heard the sound of hooves coming up the river road from Twelve Oaks that for a sweet moment she did
not think--Ashley!

She hated Twelve Oaks now and once she had loved it. She hated it but she was drawn there, so she could hear John Wilkes and the girls talk about
him--hear  them  read  his  letters  from  Virginia.  They hurt her but she had to hear them. She disliked the stiff-necked India and the foolish
prattling Honey and knew they disliked her equally, but she could not stay away from them. And every time she came home from Twelve Oaks, she lay
down on her bed morosely and refused to get up for supper.

It was this refusal of food that worried Ellen and Mammy more than anything else. Mammy brought up tempting trays, insinuating that now she was a
widow she might eat as much as she pleased, but Scarlett had no appetite.

When  Dr. Fontaine told Ellen gravely that heartbreak frequently led to a decline and women pined away into the grave, Ellen went white, for that
fear was what she had carried in her heart.

"Isn't there anything to be done, Doctor?"

"A change of scene will be the best thing in the world for her," said the doctor, only too anxious to be rid of an unsatisfactory patient.

So  Scarlett, unenthusiastic, went off with her child, first to visit her O'Hara and Robillard relatives in Savannah and then to Ellen's sisters,
Pauline  and Eulalie, in Charleston. But she was back at Tara a month before Ellen expected her, with no explanation of her return. They had been
kind  in Savannah, but James and Andrew and their wives were old and content to sit quietly and talk of a past in which Scarlett had no interest.
It was the same with the Robillards, and Charleston was terrible, Scarlett thought.

Aunt  Pauline  and  her  husband,  a little old man, with a formal, brittle courtesy and the absent air of one living in an older age, lived on a
plantation on the river, far more isolated than Tara. Their nearest neighbor was twenty miles away by dark roads through still jungles of cypress
swamp  and oak. The live oaks with their waving curtains of gray moss gave Scarlett the creeps and always brought to her mind Gerald's stories of
Irish  ghosts  roaming  in shimmering gray mists. There was nothing to do but knit all day and at night listen to Uncle Carey read aloud from the
improving works of Mr. Bulwer-Lytton.

Eulalie, hidden behind a high-walled garden in a great house on the Battery in Charleston, was no more entertaining. Scarlett, accustomed to wide
vistas  of  rolling red hills, felt that she was in prison. There was more social life here than at Aunt Pauline's, but Scarlett did not like the
people  who  called,  with their airs and their traditions and their emphasis on family. She knew very well they all thought she was a child of a
mesalliance  and wondered how a Robillard ever married a newly come Irishman. Scarlett felt that Aunt Eulalie apologized for her behind her back.
This  aroused her temper, for she cared no more about family than her father. She was proud of Gerald and what he had accomplished unaided except
by his shrewd Irish brain.

And the Charlestonians took so much upon themselves about Fort Sumter! Good Heavens, didn't they realize that if they hadn't been silly enough to
fire  the  shot  that  started  the  war some other fools would have done it? Accustomed to the brisk voices of upland Georgia, the drawling flat
voices  of  the  low  country  seemed  affected  to her. She thought if she ever again heard voices that said "paams" for "palms" and "hoose" for
"house"  and  "woon't"  for "won't" and "Maa and Paa" for "Ma and Pa," she would scream. It irritated her so much that during one formal call she
aped Gerald's brogue to her aunt's distress. Then she went back to Tara. Better to be tormented with memories of Ashley than Charleston accents.

Ellen,  busy  night  and  day,  doubling the productiveness of Tara to aid the Confederacy, was terrified when her eldest daughter came home from
Charleston  thin,  white  and sharp tongued. She had known heartbreak herself, and night after night she lay beside the snoring Gerald, trying to
think  of  some  way  to  lessen  Scarlett's distress. Charles' aunt, Miss Pittypat Hamilton, had written her several times, urging her to permit
Scarlett to come to Atlanta for a long visit, and now for the first time Ellen considered it seriously.

She  and  Melanie were alone in a big house "and without male protection," wrote Miss Pittypat, "now that dear Charlie has gone. Of course, there
is  my  brother  Henry  but  he  does  not  make  his  home with us. But perhaps Scarlett has told you of Henry. Delicacy forbids my putting more
concerning  him  on  paper. Melly and I would feel so much easier and safer if Scarlett were with us. Three lonely women are better than two. And
perhaps  dear  Scarlett  could find some ease for her sorrow, as Melly is doing, by nursing our brave boys in the hospitals here--and, of course,
Melly and I are longing to see the dear baby. . . ."

So  Scarlett's  trunk was packed again with her mourning clothes and off she went to Atlanta with Wade Hampton and his nurse Prissy, a headful of
admonitions  as  to her conduct from Ellen and Mammy and a hundred dollars in Confederate bills from Gerald. She did not especially want to go to
Atlanta.  She thought Aunt Pitty the silliest of old ladies and the very idea of living under the same roof with Ashley's wife was abhorrent. But
the County with its memories was impossible now, and any change was welcome.




PART TWO



CHAPTER VIII


As  the  train  carried  Scarlett  northward  that May morning in 1862, she thought that Atlanta couldn't possibly be so boring as Charleston and
Savannah  had been and, in spite of her distaste for Miss Pittypat and Melanie, she looked forward with some curiosity toward seeing how the town
had fared since her last visit, in the winter before the war began.

Atlanta had always interested her more than any other town because when she was a child Gerald had told her that she and Atlanta were exactly the
same  age.  She  discovered  when  she  grew  older that Gerald had stretched the truth somewhat, as was his habit when a little stretching would
improve  a  story; but Atlanta was only nine years older than she was, and that still left the place amazingly young by comparison with any other
town  she  had  ever  heard  of. Savannah and Charleston had the dignity of their years, one being well along in its second century and the other
entering  its  third, and in her young eyes they had always seemed like aged grandmothers fanning themselves placidly in the sun. But Atlanta was
of her own generation, crude with the crudities of youth and as headstrong and impetuous as herself.

The  story Gerald had told her was based on the fact that she and Atlanta were christened in the same year. In the nine years before Scarlett was
born, the town had been called, first, Terminus and then Marthasville, and not until the year of Scarlett's birth had it become Atlanta.

When  Gerald  first moved to north Georgia, there had been no Atlanta at all, not even the semblance of a village, and wilderness rolled over the
site. But the next year, in 1836, the State had authorized the building of a railroad northwestward through the territory which the Cherokees had
recently  ceded. The destination of the proposed railroad, Tennessee and the West, was clear and definite, but its beginning point in Georgia was
somewhat  uncertain  until,  a  year  later,  an  engineer  drove a stake in the red clay to mark the southern end of the line, and Atlanta, born
Terminus, had begun.

There were no railroads then in north Georgia, and very few anywhere else. But during the years before Gerald married Ellen, the tiny settlement,
twenty-five  miles north of Tara, slowly grew into a village and the tracks slowly pushed northward. Then the railroad building era really began.
From  the  old  city of Augusta, a second railroad was extended westward across the state to connect with the new road to Tennessee. From the old
city  of  Savannah, a third railroad was built first to Macon, in the heart of Georgia, and then north through Gerald's own county to Atlanta, to
link  up  with  the  other  two roads and give Savannah's harbor a highway to the West. From the same junction point, the young Atlanta, a fourth
railroad was constructed southwestward to Montgomery and Mobile.

Born  of a railroad, Atlanta grew as its railroads grew. With the completion of the four lines, Atlanta was now connected with the West, with the
South,  with  the  Coast and, through Augusta, with the North and East. It had become the crossroads of travel north and south and east and west,
and the little village leaped to life.

In  a space of time but little longer than Scarlett's seventeen years, Atlanta had grown from a single stake driven in the ground into a thriving
small  city  of  ten thousand that was the center of attention for the whole state. The older, quieter cities were wont to look upon the bustling
new  town with the sensations of a hen which has hatched a duckling. Why was the place so different from the other Georgia towns? Why did it grow
so fast? After all, they thought, it had nothing whatever to recommend it--only its railroads and a bunch of mighty pushy people.

The  people who settled the town called successively Terminus, Marthasville and Atlanta, were a pushy people. Restless, energetic people from the
older  sections  of Georgia and from more distant states were drawn to this town that sprawled itself around the junction of the railroads in its
center.  They  came  with  enthusiasm. They built their stores around the five muddy red roads that crossed near the depot. They built their fine
homes  on Whitehall and Washington streets and along the high ridge of land on which countless generations of moccasined Indian feet had beaten a
path  called  the Peachtree Trail. They were proud of the place, proud of its growth, proud of themselves for making it grow. Let the older towns
call Atlanta anything they pleased. Atlanta did not care.

Scarlett  had  always  liked  Atlanta  for  the  very same reasons that made Savannah, Augusta and Macon condemn it. Like herself, the town was a
mixture  of  the  old  and  new  in  Georgia, in which the old often came off second best in its conflicts with the self-willed and vigorous new.
Moreover, there was something personal, exciting about a town that was born--or at least christened--the same year she was christened.



The  night  before  had  been  wild and wet with rain, but when Scarlett arrived in Atlanta a warm sun was at work, bravely attempting to dry the
streets that were winding rivers of red mud. In the open space around the depot, the soft ground had been cut and churned by the constant flow of
traffic  in  and  out  until it resembled an enormous hog wallow, and here and there vehicles were mired to the hubs in the ruts. A never-ceasing
line  of  army wagons and ambulances, loading and unloading supplies and wounded from the trains, made the mud and confusion worse as they toiled
in and struggled out, drivers swearing, mules plunging and mud spattering for yards.

Scarlett  stood  on the lower step of the train, a pale pretty figure in her black mourning dress, her crepe veil fluttering almost to her heels.
She  hesitated,  unwilling  to  soil  her  slippers  and  hems, and looked about in the shouting tangle of wagons, buggies and carriages for Miss
Pittypat.  There  was  no sign of that chubby pink-cheeked lady, but as Scarlett searched anxiously a spare old negro, with grizzled kinks and an
air of dignified authority, came toward her through the mud, his hat in his hand.

"Dis  Miss Scarlett, ain' it? Dis hyah Peter, Miss Pitty's coachman. Doan step down in dat mud," he ordered severely, as Scarlett gathered up her
skirts preparatory to descending. "You is as bad as Miss Pitty an' she lak a chile 'bout gittin' her feets wet. Lemme cahy you."

He  picked  Scarlett up with ease despite his apparent frailness and age and, observing Prissy standing on the platform of the train, the baby in
her  arms,  he  paused:  "Is dat air chile yo' nuss? Miss Scarlett, she too young ter be handlin' Mist' Charles' onlies' baby! But we ten' to dat
later. You gal, foller me, an' doan you go drappin' dat baby."

Scarlett  submitted meekly to being carried toward the carriage and also to the peremptory manner in which Uncle Peter criticized her and Prissy.
As they went through the mud with Prissy sloshing, pouting, after them, she recalled what Charles had said about Uncle Peter.

"He  went  through  all  the  Mexican  campaigns with Father, nursed him when he was wounded--in fact, he saved his life. Uncle Peter practically
raised Melanie and me, for we were very young when Father and Mother died. Aunt Pitty had a falling out with her brother, Uncle Henry, about that
time,  so  she  came to live with us and take care of us. She is the most helpless soul--just like a sweet grown-up child, and Uncle Peter treats
her  that  way. To save her life, she couldn't make up her mind about anything, so Peter makes it up for her. He was the one who decided I should
have a larger allowance when I was fifteen, and he insisted that I should go to Harvard for my senior year, when Uncle Henry wanted me to take my
degree  at  the University. And he decided when Melly was old enough to put up her hair and go to parties. He tells Aunt Pitty when it's too cold
or  too  wet for her to go calling and when she should wear a shawl. . . . He's the smartest old darky I've ever seen and about the most devoted.
The only trouble with him is that he owns the three of us, body and soul, and he knows it."

Charles' words were confirmed as Peter climbed onto the box and took the whip.

"Miss  Pitty  in  a  state  bekase  she  din' come ter meet you. She's feared you mout not unnerstan' but Ah tole her she an' Miss Melly jes' git
splashed  wid  mud  an'  ruin  dey new dresses an' Ah'd 'splain ter you. Miss Scarlett, you better tek dat chile. Dat lil pickaninny gwine let it
drap."

Scarlett  looked  at  Prissy  and  sighed.  Prissy was not the most adequate of nurses. Her recent graduation from a skinny pickaninny with brief
skirts  and  stiffly wrapped braids into the dignity of a calico dress and starched white turban was an intoxicating affair. She would never have
arrived  at  this eminence so early in life had not the exigencies of war and the demands of the commissary department on Tara made it impossible
for  Ellen  to  spare Mammy or Dilcey or even Rosa or Teena. Prissy had never been more than a mile away from Twelve Oaks or Tara before, and the
trip  on  the train plus her elevation to nurse was almost more than the brain in her little black skull could bear. The twenty-mile journey from
Jonesboro  to  Atlanta  had  so  excited  her that Scarlett had been forced to hold the baby all the way. Now, the sight of so many buildings and
people completed Prissy's demoralization. She twisted from side to side, pointed, bounced about and so jounced the baby that he wailed miserably.

Scarlett  longed  for the fat old arms of Mammy. Mammy had only to lay hands on a child and it hushed crying. But Mammy was at Tara and there was
nothing Scarlett could do. It was useless for her to take little Wade from Prissy. He yelled just as loudly when she held him as when Prissy did.
Besides, he would tug at the ribbons of her bonnet and, no doubt, rumple her dress. So she pretended she had not heard Uncle Peter's suggestion.

"Maybe  I'll  learn  about  babies sometime," she thought irritably, as the carriage jolted and swayed out of the morass surrounding the station,
"but I'm never going to like fooling with them." And as Wade's face went purple with his squalling, she snapped crossly: "Give him that sugar-tit
in your pocket, Priss. Anything to make him hush. I know he's hungry, but I can't do anything about that now."

Prissy  produced  the sugar-tit, given her that morning by Mammy, and the baby's wails subsided. With quiet restored and with the new sights that
met  her eyes, Scarlest's spirits began to rise a little. When Uncle Peter finally maneuvered the carriage out of the mudholes and onto Peachtree
Street, she felt the first surge of interest she had known in months. How the town had grown! It was not much more than a year since she had last
been here, and it did not seem possible that the little Atlanta she knew could have changed so much.

For  the past year, she had been so engrossed in her own woes, so bored by any mention of war, she did not know that from the minute the fighting
first  began,  Atlanta  had  been transformed. The same railroads which had made the town the crossroads of commerce in time of peace were now of
vital  strategic  importance  in  time of war. Far from the battle lines, the town and its railroads provided the connecting link between the two
armies  of  the Confederacy, the army in Virginia and the army in Tennessee and the West. And Atlanta likewise linked both of the armies with the
deeper  South  from  which  they drew their supplies. Now, in response to the needs of war, Atlanta had become a manufacturing center, a hospital
base and one of the South's chief depots for the collecting of food and supplies for the armies in the field.

Scarlett  looked  about  her for the little town she remembered so well. It was gone. The town she was now seeing was like a baby grown overnight
into a busy, sprawling giant.

Atlanta  was  humming  like  a  beehive,  proudly conscious of its importance to the Confederacy, and work was going forward night and day toward
turning  an  agricultural  section into an industrial one. Before the war there had been few cotton factories, woolen mills, arsenals and machine
shops south of Maryland--a fact of which all Southerners were proud. The South produced statesmen and soldiers, planters and doctors, lawyers and
poets,  but  certainly  not  engineers  or  mechanics. Let the Yankees adopt such low callings. But now the Confederate ports were stoppered with
Yankee  gunboats,  only  a trickle of blockade-run goods was slipping in from Europe, and the South was desperately trying to manufacture her own
war  materials.  The  North could call on the whole world for supplies and for soldiers, and thousands of Irish and Germans were pouring into the
Union Army, lured by the bounty money offered by the North. The South could only turn in upon itself.

In Atlanta, there were machine factories tediously turning out machinery to manufacture war materials--tediously, because there were few machines
in the South from which they could model and nearly every wheel and cog had to be made from drawings that came through the blockade from England.
There  were  strange  faces  on  the  streets of Atlanta now, and citizens who a year ago would have pricked up their ears at the sound of even a
Western  accent  paid  no heed to the foreign tongues of Europeans who had run the blockade to build machines and turn out Confederate munitions.
Skilled men these, without whom the Confederacy would have been hard put to make pistols, rifles, cannon and powder.

Almost the pulsing of the town's heart could be felt as the work went forward night and day, pumping the materials of war up the railway arteries
to  the  two battle fronts. Trains roared in and out of the town at all hours. Soot from the newly erected factories fell in showers on the white
houses.  By  night,  the  furnaces glowed and the hammers clanged long after townsfolk were abed. Where vacant lots had been a year before, there
were now factories turning out harness, saddles and shoes, ordnance-supply plants making rifles and cannon, rolling mills and foundries producing
iron  rails  and  freight  cars to replace those destroyed by the Yankees, and a variety of industries manufacturing spurs, bridle bits, buckles,
tents,  buttons, pistols and swords. Already the foundries were beginning to feel the lack of iron, for little or none came through the blockade,
and  the mines in Alabama were standing almost idle while the miners were at the front. There were no iron picket fences, iron summerhouses, iron
gates or even iron statuary on the lawns of Atlanta now, for they had early found their way into the melting pots of the rolling mills.

Here  along  Peachtree Street and near-by streets were the headquarters of the various army departments, each office swarming with uniformed men,
the  commissary, the signal corps, the mail service, the railway transport, the provost marshal. On the outskirts of town were the remount depots
where  horses  and  mules  milled about in large corrals, and along side streets were the hospitals. As Uncle Peter told her about them, Scarlett
felt  that  Atlanta must be a city of the wounded, for there were general hospitals, contagious hospitals, convalescent hospitals without number.
And every day the trains just below Five Points disgorged more sick and more wounded.

The  little  town  was  gone  and  the  face  of the rapidly growing city was animated with never-ceasing energy and bustle. The sight of so much
hurrying made Scarlett, fresh from rural leisure and quiet, almost breathless, but she liked it. There was an exciting atmosphere about the place
that uplifted her. It was as if she could actually feel the accelerated steady pulse of the town's heart beating in time with her own.

As  they  slowly made their way through the mudholes of the town's chief street, she noted with interest all the new buildings and the new faces.
The  sidewalks  were  crowded  with men in uniform, bearing the insignia of all ranks and all service branches; the narrow street was jammed with
vehicles--carriages,  buggies,  ambulances,  covered army wagons with profane drivers swearing as the mules struggled through the ruts; gray-clad
couriers  dashed spattering through the streets from one headquarters to another, bearing orders and telegraphic dispatches; convalescents limped
about  on  crutches,  usually  with  a  solicitous lady at either elbow; bugle and drum and barked orders sounded from the drill fields where the
recruits  were  being  turned  into  soldiers;  and with her heart in her throat, Scarlett had her first sight of Yankee uniforms, as Uncle Peter
pointed  with  his  whip  to  a  detachment of dejected-looking bluecoats being shepherded toward the depot by a squad of Confederates with fixed
bayonets, to entrain for the prison camp.

"Oh,"  thought  Scarlett,  with the first feeling of real pleasure she had experienced since the day of the barbecue, "I'm going to like it here!
It's so alive and exciting!"

The  town was even more alive than she realized, for there were new barrooms by the dozens; prostitutes, following the army, swarmed the town and
bawdy  houses were blossoming with women to the consternation of the church people. Every hotel, boarding house and private residence was crammed
with visitors who had come to be near wounded relatives in the big Atlanta hospitals. There were parties and balls and bazaars every week and war
weddings  without  number,  with  the  grooms  on furlough in bright gray and gold braid and the brides in blockade-run finery, aisles of crossed
swords,  toasts  drunk  in  blockaded  champagne and tearful farewells. Nightly the dark tree-lined streets resounded with dancing feet, and from
parlors  tinkled pianos where soprano voices blended with those of soldier guests in the pleasing melancholy of "The Bugles Sang Truce" and "Your
Letter Came, but Came Too Late"--plaintive ballads that brought exciting tears to soft eyes which had never known the tears of real grief.

As  they  progressed  down  the  street, through the sucking mud, Scarlett bubbled over with questions and Peter answered them, pointing here and
there with his whip, proud to display his knowledge.

"Dat air de arsenal. Yas'm, dey keeps guns an' sech lak dar. No'm, dem air ain' sto's, dey's blockade awfisses. Law, Miss Scarlett, doan you know
whut  blockade  awfisses is? Dey's awfisses whar furriners stays dat buy us Confedruts' cotton an' ship it outer Cha'ston and Wilmin'ton an' ship
us  back gunpowder. No'm, Ah ain' sho whut kine of furriners dey is. Miss Pitty, she say dey is Inlish but kain nobody unnerstan a' wud dey says.
Yas'm  'tis  pow'ful smoky an' de soot jes' ruinin' Miss Pitty's silk cuttins. It' frum de foun'ry an' de rollin' mills. An' de noise dey meks at
night! Kain nobody sleep. No'm, Ah kain stop fer you ter look around. Ah done promise Miss Pitty Ah bring you straight home. . . . Miss Scarlett,
mek yo' cu'tsy. Dar's Miss Merriwether an' Miss Elsing a-bowin' to you."

Scarlett  vaguely remembered two ladies of those names who came from Atlanta to Tara to attend her wedding and she remembered that they were Miss
Pittypat's  best friends. So she turned quickly where Uncle Peter pointed and bowed. The two were sitting in a carriage outside a drygoods store.
The  proprietor and two clerks stood on the sidewalk with armfuls of bolts of cotton cloth they had been displaying. Mrs. Merriwether was a tall,
stout  woman  and  so  tightly  corseted  that her bust jutted forward like the prow of a ship. Her iron-gray hair was eked out by a curled false
fringe  that  was  proudly  brown  and  disdained to match the rest of her hair. She had a round, highly colored face in which was combined good-
natured  shrewdness and the habit of command. Mrs. Elsing was younger, a thin frail woman, who had been a beauty, and about her there still clung
a faded freshness, a dainty imperious air.

These  two  ladies  with  a third, Mrs. Whiting, were the pillars of Atlanta. They ran the three churches to which they belonged, the clergy, the
choirs  and the parishioners. They organized bazaars and presided over sewing circles, they chaperoned balls and picnics, they knew who made good
matches  and  who  did  not,  who  drank secretly, who were to have babies and when. They were authorities on the genealogies of everyone who was
anyone  in  Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia and did not bother their heads about the other states, because they believed that no one who was
anybody  ever  came from states other than these three. They knew what was decorous behavior and what was not and they never failed to make their
opinions known--Mrs. Merriwether at the top of her voice, Mrs. Elsing in an elegant die-away drawl and Mrs. Whiting in a distressed whisper which
showed how much she hated to speak of such things. These three ladies disliked and distrusted one another as heartily as the First Triumvirate of
Rome, and their close alliance was probably for the same reason.

"I told Pitty I had to have you in my hospital," called Mrs. Merriweather, smiling. "Don't you go promising Mrs. Meade or Mrs. Whiting!"

"I  won't,"  said  Scarlett, having no idea what Mrs. Merriwether was talking about but feeling a glow of warmth at being welcomed and wanted. "I
hope to see you again soon."

The  carriage  plowed  its  way  farther  and  halted for a moment to permit two ladies with baskets of bandages on their arms to pick precarious
passages  across  the  sloppy  street on stepping stones. At the same moment, Scarlett's eye was caught by a figure on the sidewalk in a brightly
colored  dress--too  bright  for  street wear--covered by a Paisley shawl with fringes to the heels. Turning she saw a tall handsome woman with a
bold  face  and  a  mass  of  red  hair, too red to be true. It was the first time she had ever seen any woman who she knew for certain had "done
something to her hair" and she watched her, fascinated.

"Uncle Peter, who is that?" she whispered.

"Ah doan know."

"You do, too. I can tell. Who is she?"

"Her name Belle Watling," said Uncle Peter, his lower lip beginning to protrude.

Scarlett was quick to catch the fact that he had not preceded the name with "Miss" or "Mrs."

"Who is she?"

"Miss  Scarlett,"  said Peter darkly, laying the whip on the startled horse, "Miss Pitty ain' gwine ter lak it you astin' questions dat ain' none
of yo' bizness. Dey's a passel of no-count folks in dis town now dat it ain' no use talkin' about."

"Good Heavens!" thought Scarlett, reproved into silence. "That must be a bad woman!"

She had never seen a bad woman before and she twisted her head and stared after her until she was lost in the crowd.

The  stores  and  the  new  war  buildings  were  farther  apart  now, with vacant lots between. Finally the business section fell behind and the
residences  came  into  view.  Scarlett picked them out as old friends, the Leyden house, dignified and stately; the Bonnells', with little white
columns  and  green  blinds;  the close-lipped red-brick Georgian home of the McLure family, behind its low box hedges. Their progress was slower
now, for from porches and gardens and sidewalks ladies called to her. Some she knew slightly, others she vaguely remembered, but most of them she
knew  not  at all. Pittypat had certainly broadcast her arrival. Little Wade had to be held up time and again, so that ladies who ventured as far
through  the ooze as their carriage blocks could exclaim over him. They all cried to her that she must join their knitting and sewing circles and
their hospital committees, and no one else's, and she promised recklessly to right and left.

As they passed a rambling green clapboard house, a little black girl posted on the front steps cried, "Hyah she come," and Dr. Meade and his wife
and  little  thirteen-year-old  Phil  emerged, calling greetings. Scarlett recalled that they too had been at her wedding. Mrs. Meade mounted her
carriage  block  and craned her neck for a view of the baby, but the doctor, disregarding the mud, plowed through to the side of the carriage. He
was  tall and gaunt and wore a pointed beard of iron gray, and his clothes hung on his spare figure as though blown there by a hurricane. Atlanta
considered  him  the  root  of all strength and all wisdom and it was not strange that he had absorbed something of their belief. But for all his
habit of making oracular statements and his slightly pompous manner, he was as kindly a man as the town possessed.

After  shaking her hand and prodding Wade in the stomach and complimenting him, the doctor announced that Aunt Pittypat had promised on oath that
Scarlett should be on no other hospital and bandage-rolling committee save Mrs. Meade's.

"Oh, dear, but I've promised a thousand ladies already!" said Scarlett.

"Mrs. Merriwether, I'll be bound!" cried Mrs. Meade indignantly. "Drat the woman! I believe she meets every train!"

"I promised because I hadn't a notion what it was all about," Scarlett confessed. "What are hospital committees anyway?"

Both the doctor and his wife looked slightly shocked at her ignorance.

"But,  of  course, you've been buried in the country and couldn't know," Mrs. Meade apologized for her. "We have nursing committees for different
hospitals  and  for different days. We nurse the men and help the doctors and make bandages and clothes and when the men are well enough to leave
the  hospitals  we  take them into our homes to convalesce till they are able to go back in the army. And we look after the wives and families of
some  of  the wounded who are destitute--yes, worse than destitute. Dr. Meade is at the Institute hospital where my committee works, and everyone
says he's marvelous and--"

"There,  there,  Mrs. Meade," said the doctor fondly. "Don't go bragging on me in front of folks. It's little enough I can do, since you wouldn't
let me go in the army."

"'Wouldn't  let!'"  she cried indignantly. "Me? The town wouldn't let you and you know it. Why, Scarlett, when folks heard he was intending to go
to Virginia as an army surgeon, all the ladies signed a petition begging him to stay here. Of course, the town couldn't do without you."

"There,  there,  Mrs.  Meade,"  said  the doctor, basking obviously in the praise. "Perhaps with one boy at the front, that's enough for the time
being."

"And  I'm  going  next year!" cried little Phil hopping about excitedly. "As a drummer boy. I'm learning how to drum now. Do you want to hear me?
I'll run get my drum."

"No,  not now," said Mrs. Meade, drawing him closer to her, a sudden look of strain coming over her face. "Not next year, darling. Maybe the year
after."

"But the war will be over then!" he cried petulantly, pulling away from her. "And you promised!"

Over  his head the eyes of the parents met and Scarlett saw the look. Darcy Meade was in Virginia and they were clinging closer to the little boy
that was left.

Uncle Peter cleared his throat.

"Miss Pitty were in a state when Ah lef' home an' ef Ah doan git dar soon, she'll done swooned."

"Good-by.  I'll be over this afternoon," called Mrs. Meade. "And you tell Pitty for me that if you aren't on my committee, she's going to be in a
worse state."

The  carriage  slipped and slid down the muddy road and Scarlett leaned back on the cushions and smiled. She felt better now than she had felt in
months.  Atlanta,  with  its  crowds and its hurry and its undercurrent of driving excitement, was very pleasant, very exhilarating, so very much
nicer  than  the  lonely plantation out from Charleston, where the bellow of alligators broke the night stillness; better than Charleston itself,
dreaming in its gardens behind its high walls; better than Savannah with its wide streets lined with palmetto and the muddy river beside it. Yes,
and temporarily even better than Tara, dear though Tara was.

There  was something exciting about this town with its narrow muddy streets, lying among rolling red hills, something raw and crude that appealed
to  the  rawness and crudeness underlying the fine veneer that Ellen and Mammy had given her. She suddenly felt that this was where she belonged,
not in serene and quiet old cities, flat beside yellow waters.

The  houses were farther and farther apart now, and leaning out Scarlett saw the red brick and slate roof of Miss Pittypat's house. It was almost
the  last  house on the north side of town. Beyond it, Peachtree road narrowed and twisted under great trees out of sight into thick quiet woods.
The  neat  wooden-paneled  fence  had  been  newly  painted white and the front yard it inclosed was yellow starred with the last jonquils of the
season.  On  the  front  steps  stood  two women in black and behind them a large yellow woman with her hands under her apron and her white teeth
showing  in a wide smile. Plump Miss Pittypat was teetering excitedly on tiny feet, one hand pressed to her copious bosom to still her fluttering
heart.  Scarlett  saw  Melanie  standing  by her and, with a surge of dislike, she realized that the fly in the ointment of Atlanta would be this
slight  little  person in black mourning dress, her riotous dark curls subdued to matronly smoothness and a loving smile of welcome and happiness
on her heart-shaped face.



When  a  Southerner  took the trouble to pack a trunk and travel twenty miles for a visit, the visit was seldom of shorter duration than a month,
usually much longer. Southerners were as enthusiastic visitors as they were hosts, and there was nothing unusual in relatives coming to spend the
Christmas  holidays and remaining until July. Often when newly married couples went on the usual round of honeymoon visits, they lingered in some
pleasant  home  until  the  birth  of  their second child. Frequently elderly aunts and uncles came to Sunday dinner and remained until they were
buried  years  later.  Visitors  presented  no  problem, for houses were large, servants numerous and the feeding of several extra mouths a minor
matter in that land of plenty. All ages and sexes went visiting, honeymooners, young mothers showing off new babies, convalescents, the bereaved,
girls whose parents were anxious to remove them from the dangers of unwise matches, girls who had reached the danger age without becoming engaged
and  who, it was hoped, would make suitable matches under the guidance of relatives in other places. Visitors added excitement and variety to the
slow-moving Southern life and they were always welcome.

So  Scarlett  had  come to Atlanta with no idea as to how long she would remain. If her visit proved as dull as those in Savannah and Charleston,
she  would  return  home  in  a month. If her stay was pleasant, she would remain indefinitely. But no sooner had she arrived than Aunt Pitty and
Melanie  began  a campaign to induce her to make her home permanently with them. They brought up every possible argument. They wanted her for her
own self because they loved her. They were lonely and often frightened at night in the big house, and she was so brave she gave them courage. She
was  so  charming that she cheered them in their sorrow. Now that Charles was dead, her place and her son's place were with his kindred. Besides,
half the house now belonged to her, through Charles' will. Last, the Confederacy needed every pair of hands for sewing, knitting, bandage rolling
and nursing the wounded.

Charles'  Uncle  Henry  Hamilton,  who lived in bachelor state at the Atlanta Hotel near the depot, also talked seriously to her on this subject.
Uncle  Henry  was  a short, pot-bellied, irascible old gentleman with a pink face, a shock of long silver hair and an utter lack of patience with
feminine  timidities  and  vaporings.  It  was  for  the  latter reason that he was barely on speaking terms with his sister, Miss Pittypat. From
childhood,  they  had  been  exact  opposites in temperament and they had been further estranged by his objections to the manner in which she had
reared  Charles--"Making a damn sissy out of a soldier's son!" Years before, he had so insulted her that now Miss Pitty never spoke of him except
in guarded whispers and with so great reticence that a stranger would have thought the honest old lawyer a murderer, at the least. The insult had
occurred on a day when Pitty wished to draw five hundred dollars from her estate, of which he was trustee, to invest in a non-existent gold mine.
He  had  refused to permit it and stated heatedly that she had no more sense than a June bug and furthermore it gave him the fidgets to be around
her  longer  than  five  minutes.  Since  that  day, she only saw him formally, once a month, when Uncle Peter drove her to his office to get the
housekeeping  money.  After  these  brief visits, Pitty always took to her bed for the rest of the day with tears and smelling salts. Melanie and
Charles,  who  were  on  excellent terms with their uncle, had frequently offered to relieve her of this ordeal, but Pitty always set her babyish
mouth  firmly  and  refused.  Henry was her cross and she must bear him. From this, Charles and Melanie could only infer that she took a profound
pleasure in this occasional excitement, the only excitement in her sheltered life.

Uncle  Henry  liked Scarlett immediately because, he said, he could see that for all her silly affectations she had a few grains of sense. He was
trustee,  not  only  of Pitty's and Melanie's estates, but also of that left Scarlett by Charles. It came to Scarlett as a pleasant surprise that
she  was now a well-to-do young woman, for Charles had not only left her half of Aunt Pitty's house but farm lands and town property as well. And
the  stores and warehouses along the railroad track near the depot, which were part of her inheritance, had tripled in value since the war began.
It was when Uncle Henry was giving her an account of her property that he broached the matter of her permanent residence in Atlanta.

"When  Wade  Hampton  comes  of age, he's going to be a rich young man," he said. "The way Atlanta is growing his property will be ten times more
valuable  in  twenty years, and it's only right that the boy should be raised where his property is, so he can learn to take care of it--yes, and
of Pitty's and Melanie's, too. He'll be the only man of the Hamilton name left before long, for I won't be here forever."

As  for  Uncle  Peter, he took it for granted that Scarlett had come to stay. It was inconceivable to him that Charles' only son should be reared
where  he  could not supervise the rearing. To all these arguments, Scarlett smiled but said nothing, unwilling to commit herself before learning
how  she  would like Atlanta and constant association with her in-laws. She knew, too, that Gerald and Ellen would have to be won over. Moreover,
now  that she was away from Tara, she missed it dreadfully, missed the red fields and the springing green cotton and the sweet twilight silences.
For the first time, she realized dimly what Gerald had meant when he said that the love of the land was in her blood.

So she gracefully evaded, for the time being, a definite answer as to the duration of her visit and slipped easily into the life of the red-brick
house at the quiet end of Peachtree Street.

Living  with Charles' blood kin, seeing the home from which he came. Scarlett could now understand a little better the boy who had made her wife,
widow and mother in such rapid succession. It was easy to see why he had been so shy, so unsophisticated, so idealistic. If Charles had inherited
any of the qualities of the stern, fearless, hot-tempered soldier who had been his father, they had been obliterated in childhood by the ladylike
atmosphere  in which he had been reared. He had been devoted to the childlike Pitty and closer than brothers usually are to Melanie, and two more
sweet, unworldly women could not be found.

Aunt  Pittypat  had  been  christened Sarah Jane Hamilton sixty years before, but since the long-past day when her doting father had fastened his
nickname  upon  her,  because  of her airy, restless, pattering little feet, no one had called her anything else. In the years that followed that
second  christening,  many  changes  had  taken  place  in  her that made the pet name incongruous. Of the swiftly scampering child, all that now
remained  were  two tiny feet, inadequate to her weight, and a tendency to prattle happily and aimlessly. She was stout, pink-cheeked and silver-
haired  and  always a little breathless from too tightly laced stays. She was unable to walk more than a block on the tiny feet which she crammed
into too small slippers. She had a heart which fluttered at any excitement and she pampered it shamelessly, fainting at any provocation. Everyone
knew  that her swoons were generally mere ladylike pretenses but they loved her enough to refrain from saying so. Everyone loved her, spoiled her
like a child and refused to take her seriously--everyone except her brother Henry.

She liked gossip better than anything else in the world, even more than she liked the pleasures of the table, and she prattled on for hours about
other  people's  affairs in a harmless kindly way. She had no memory for names, dates or places and frequently confused the actors in one Atlanta
drama  with  the  actors  in another, which misled no one for no one was foolish enough to take seriously anything she said. No one ever told her
anything  really  shocking  or  scandalous,  for  her spinster state must be protected even if she was sixty years old, and her friends were in a
kindly conspiracy to keep her a sheltered and petted old child.

Melanie  was  like  her  aunt in many ways. She had her shyness, her sudden blushes, her modesty, but she did have common sense--"Of a sort, I'll
admit  that," Scarlett thought grudgingly. Like Aunt Pitty, Melanie had the face of a sheltered child who had never known anything but simplicity
and  kindness,  truth and love, a child who had never looked upon harshness or evil and would not recognize them if she saw them. Because she had
always  been  happy,  she  wanted  everyone  about her to be happy or, at least, pleased with themselves. To this end, she always saw the best in
everyone  and remarked kindly upon it. There was no servant so stupid that she did not find some redeeming trait of loyalty and kind-heartedness,
no  girl so ugly and disagreeable that she could not discover grace of form or nobility of character in her, and no man so worthless or so boring
that she did not view him in the light of his possibilities rather than his actualities.

Because  of these qualities that came sincerely and spontaneously from a generous heart, everyone flocked about her, for who can resist the charm
of  one  who  discovers  in  others  admirable qualities undreamed of even by himself? She had more girl friends than anyone in town and more men
friends too, though she had few beaux for she lacked the willfulness and selfishness that go far toward trapping men's hearts.

What Melanie did was no more than all Southern girls were taught to do--to make those about them feel at ease and pleased with themselves. It was
this  happy feminine conspiracy which made Southern society so pleasant. Women knew that a land where men were contented, uncontradicted and safe
in  possession  of unpunctured vanity was likely to be a very pleasant place for women to live. So, from the cradle to the grave, women strove to
make  men  pleased  with  themselves,  and the satisfied men repaid lavishly with gallantry and adoration. In fact, men willingly gave the ladies
everything  in  the  world  except  credit for having intelligence. Scarlett exercised the same charms as Melanie but with a studied artistry and
consummate  skill. The difference between the two girls lay in the fact that Melanie spoke kind and flattering words from a desire to make people
happy, if only temporarily, and Scarlett never did it except to further her own aims.

From the two he loved best, Charles had received no toughening influences, learned nothing of harshness or reality, and the home in which he grew
to  manhood  was  as soft as a bird's nest. It was such a quiet, old-fashioned, gentle home compared with Tara. To Scarlett, this house cried out
for  the  masculine  smells of brandy, tobacco and Macassar oil, for hoarse voices and occasional curses, for guns, for whiskers, for saddles and
bridles  and  for hounds underfoot. She missed the sounds of quarreling voices that were always heard at Tara when Ellen's back was turned, Mammy
quarreling  with Pork, Rosa and Teena bickering, her own acrimonious arguments with Suellen, Gerald's bawling threats. No wonder Charles had been
a  sissy,  coming from a home like this. Here, excitement never entered in, voices were never raised, everyone deferred gently to the opinions of
others,  and,  in  the  end,  the  black  grizzled autocrat in the kitchen had his way. Scarlett, who had hoped for a freer rein when she escaped
Mammy's  supervision,  discovered  to her sorrow that Uncle Peter's standards of ladylike conduct, especially for Mist' Charles' widow, were even
stricter than Mammy's.

In such a household, Scarlett came back to herself, and almost before she realized it her spirits rose to normal. She was only seventeen, she had
superb  health and energy, and Charles' people did their best to make her happy. If they fell a little short of this, it was not their fault, for
no  one  could  take out of her heart the ache that throbbed whenever Ashley's name was mentioned. And Melanie mentioned it so often! But Melanie
and  Pitty were tireless in planning ways to soothe the sorrow under which they thought she labored. They put their own grief into the background
in  order  to divert her. They fussed about her food and her hours for taking afternoon naps and for taking carriage rides. They not only admired
her  extravagantly, her high-spiritedness, her figure, her tiny hands and feet, her white skin, but they said so frequently, petting, hugging and
kissing her to emphasize their loving words.

Scarlett  did  not  care  for the caresses, but she basked in the compliments. No one at Tara had ever said so many charming things about her. In
fact,  Mammy had spent her time deflating her conceit. Little Wade was no longer an annoyance, for the family, black and white, and the neighbors
idolized him and there was a never-ceasing rivalry as to whose lap he should occupy. Melanie especially doted on him. Even in his worst screaming
spells, Melanie thought him adorable and said so, adding, "Oh, you precious darling! I just wish you were mine!"

Sometimes  Scarlett  found  it  hard to dissemble her feelings, for she still thought Aunt Pitty the silliest of old ladies and her vagueness and
vaporings  irritated  her  unendurably. She disliked Melanie with a jealous dislike that grew as the days went by, and sometimes she had to leave
the room abruptly when Melanie, beaming with loving pride, spoke of Ashley or read his letters aloud. But, all in all, life went on as happily as
was  possible  under  the circumstances. Atlanta was more interesting than Savannah or Charleston or Tara and it offered so many strange war-time
occupations  she had little time to think or mope. But, sometimes, when she blew out the candle and burrowed her head into the pillow, she sighed
and thought: "If only Ashley wasn't married! If only I didn't have to nurse in that plagued hospital! Oh, if only I could have some beaux!"

She  had  immediately  loathed nursing but she could not escape this duty because she was on both Mrs. Meade's and Mrs. Merriwether's committees.
That  meant  four mornings a week in the sweltering, stinking hospital with her hair tied up in a towel and a hot apron covering her from neck to
feet.  Every  matron, old or young, in Atlanta nursed and did it with an enthusiasm that seemed to Scarlett little short of fanatic. They took it
for  granted  that  she was imbued with their own patriotic fervor and would have been shocked to know how slight an interest in the war she had.
Except  for  the  ever-present  torment  that Ashley might be killed, the war interested her not at all, and nursing was something she did simply
because she didn't know how to get out of it.

Certainly  there  was  nothing romantic about nursing. To her, it meant groans, delirium, death and smells. The hospitals were filled with dirty,
bewhiskered, verminous men who smelled terribly and bore on their bodies wounds hideous enough to turn a Christian's stomach. The hospitals stank
of  gangrene,  the  odor  assaulting  her nostrils long before the doors were reached, a sickish sweet smell that clung to her hands and hair and
haunted  her  in her dreams. Flies, mosquitoes and gnats hovered in droning, singing swarms over the wards, tormenting the men to curses and weak
sobs; and Scarlett, scratching her own mosquito bites, swung palmetto fans until her shoulders ached and she wished that all the men were dead.

Melanie,  however,  did not seem to mind the smells, the wounds or the nakedness, which Scarlett thought strange in one who was the most timorous
and  modest of women. Sometimes when holding basins and instruments while Dr. Meade cut out gangrened flesh, Melanie looked very white. And once,
alter such an operation, Scarlett found her in the linen closet vomiting quietly into a towel. But as long as she was where the wounded could see
her,  she  was  gentle, sympathetic and cheerful, and the men in the hospitals called her an angel of mercy. Scarlett would have liked that title
too,  but  it  involved  touching  men  crawling  with  lice, running fingers down throats of unconscious patients to see if they were choking on
swallowed tobacco quids, bandaging stumps and picking maggots out of festering flesh. No, she did not like nursing!

Perhaps  it  might  have been endurable if she had been permitted to use her charms on the convalescent men, for many of them were attractive and
well  born, but this she could not do in her widowed state. The young ladies of the town, who were not permitted to nurse for fear they would see
sights  unfit  for  virgin  eyes, had the convalescent wards in their charge. Unhampered by matrimony or widowhood, they made vast inroads on the
convalescents, and even the least attractive girls, Scarlett observed gloomily, had no difficulty in getting engaged.

With  the  exception of desperately ill and severely wounded men, Scarlett's was a completely feminized world and this irked her, for she neither
liked  nor  trusted  her  own  sex  and, worse still, was always bored by it. But on three afternoons a week she had to attend sewing circles and
bandage-rolling  committees  of  Melanie's  friends. The girls who had all known Charles were very kind and attentive to her at these gatherings,
especially  Fanny Elsing and Maybelle Merriwether, the daughters of the town dowagers. But they treated her deferentially, as if she were old and
finished,  and  their  constant  chatter of dances and beaux made her both envious of their pleasures and resentful that her widowhood barred her
from  such  activities.  Why,  she  was three times as attractive as Fanny and Maybelle! Oh, how unfair life was! How unfair that everyone should
think her heart was in the grave when it wasn't at all! It was in Virginia with Ashley!

But in spite of these discomforts, Atlanta pleased her very well. And her visit lengthened as the weeks slipped by.



CHAPTER IX


Scarlett  sat in the window of her bedroom that midsummer morning and disconsolately watched the wagons and carriages full of girls, soldiers and
chaperons ride gaily out Peachtree road in search of woodland decorations for the bazaar which was to be held that evening for the benefit of the
hospitals.  The  red  road lay checkered in shade and sun glare beneath the over-arching trees and the many hooves kicked up little red clouds of
dust. One wagon, ahead of the others, bore four stout negroes with axes to cut evergreens and drag down the vines, and the back of this wagon was
piled  high  with napkin-covered hampers, split-oak baskets of lunch and a dozen watermelons. Two of the black bucks were equipped with banjo and
harmonica  and  they  were  rendering  a  spirited version of "If You Want to Have a Good Time, Jine the Cavalry." Behind them streamed the merry
cavalcade, girls cool in flowered cotton dresses, with light shawls, bonnets and mitts to protect their skins and little parasols held over their
heads;  elderly  ladies placid and smiling amid the laughter and carriage-to-carriage calls and jokes; convalescents from the hospitals wedged in
between  stout  chaperons  and  slender  girls  who  made great fuss and to-do over them; officers on horseback idling at snail's pace beside the
carriages--wheels  creaking,  spurs  jingling,  gold  braid  gleaming, parasols bobbing, fans swishing, negroes singing. Everybody was riding out
Peachtree road to gather greenery and have a picnic and melon cutting. Everybody, thought Scarlett, morosely, except me.

They all waved and called to her as they went by and she tried to respond with a good grace, but it was difficult. A hard little pain had started
in her heart and was traveling slowly up toward her throat where it would become a lump and the lump would soon become tears. Everybody was going
to  the  picnic  except her. And everybody was going to the bazaar and the ball tonight except her. That is everybody except her and Pittypat and
Melly  and  the other unfortunates in town who were in mourning. But Melly and Pittypat did not seem to mind. It had not even occurred to them to
want to go. It had occurred to Scarlett. And she did want to go, tremendously.

It simply wasn't fair. She had worked twice as hard as any girl in town, getting things ready for the bazaar. She had knitted socks and baby caps
and  afghans and mufflers and tatted yards of lace and painted china hair receivers and mustache cups. And she had embroidered half a dozen sofa-
pillow cases with the Confederate flag on them. (The stars were a bit lopsided, to be sure, some of them being almost round and others having six
or even seven points, but the effect was good.) Yesterday she had worked until she was worn out in the dusty old barn of an Armory draping yellow
and  pink  and green cheesecloth on the booths that lined the walls. Under the supervision of the Ladies' Hospital Committee, this was plain hard
work  and no fun at all. It was never fun to be around Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing and Mrs. Whiting and have them boss you like you were one
of  the  darkies.  And  have to listen to them brag about how popular their daughters were. And, worst of all, she had burned two blisters on her
fingers helping Pittypat and Cookie make layer cakes for raffling.

And now, having worked like a field hand, she had to retire decorously when the fun was just beginning. Oh, it wasn't fair that she should have a
dead  husband  and a baby yelling in the next room and be out of everything that was pleasant. Just a little over a year ago, she was dancing and
wearing  bright clothes instead of this dark mourning and was practically engaged to three boys. She was only seventeen now and there was still a
lot  of dancing left in her feet. Oh, it wasn't fair! Life was going past her, down a hot shady summer road, life with gray uniforms and jingling
spurs  and  flowered organdie dresses and banjos playing. She tried not to smile and wave too enthusiastically to the men she knew best, the ones
she'd nursed in the hospital, but it was hard to subdue her dimples, hard to look as though her heart were in the grave--when it wasn't.

Her  bowing  and  waving were abruptly halted when Pittypat entered the room, panting as usual from climbing the stairs, and jerked her away from
the window unceremoniously.

"Have you lost your mind, honey, waving at men out of your bedroom window? I declare, Scarlett, I'm shocked! What would your mother say?"

"Well, they didn't know it was my bedroom."

"But  they'd  suspect it was your bedroom and that's just as bad. Honey, you mustn't do things like that. Everybody will be talking about you and
saying you are fast--and anyway, Mrs. Merriwether knew it was your bedroom."

"And I suppose she'll tell all the boys, the old cat."

"Honey, hush! Dolly Merriwether's my best friend."

"Well,  she's  a cat just the same--oh, I'm sorry, Auntie, don't cry! I forgot it was my bedroom window. I won't do it again--I--I just wanted to
see them go by. I wish I was going."

"Honey!"

"Well, I do. I'm so tired of sitting at home."

"Scarlett, promise me you won't say things like that. People would talk so. They'd say you didn't have the proper respect for poor Charlie--"

"Oh, Auntie, don't cry!"

"Oh, now I've made you cry, too," sobbed Pittypat, in a pleased way, fumbling in her skirt pocket for her handkerchief.

The  hard  little  pain had at last reached Scarlett's throat and she wailed out loud--not, as Pittypat thought, for poor Charlie but because the
last  sounds of the wheels and the laughter were dying away. Melanie rustled in from her room, a worried frown puckering her forehead, a brush in
her hands, her usually tidy black hair, freed of its net, fluffing about her face in a mass of tiny curls and waves.

"Darlings! What is the matter?"

"Charlie!" sobbed Pittypat, surrendering utterly to the pleasure of her grief and burying her head on Melly's shoulder.

"Oh," said Melly, her lip quivering at the mention of her brother's name. "Be brave, dear. Don't cry. Oh, Scarlett!"

Scarlett  had  thrown herself on the bed and was sobbing at the top of her voice, sobbing for her lost youth and the pleasures of youth that were
denied  her, sobbing with the indignation and despair of a child who once could get anything she wanted by sobbing and now knows that sobbing can
no longer help her. She burrowed her head in the pillow and cried and kicked her feet at the tufted counterpane.

"I  might  as  well  be  dead!"  she  sobbed passionately. Before such an exhibition of grief, Pittypat's easy tears ceased and Melly flew to the
bedside to comfort her sister-in-law.

"Dear, don't cry! Try to think how much Charlie loved you and let that comfort you! Try to think of your darling baby."

Indignation  at  being  misunderstood  mingled  with  Scarlett's forlorn feeling of being out of everything and strangled all utterance. That was
fortunate,  for  if  she  could have spoken she would have cried out truths couched in Gerald's forthright words. Melanie patted her shoulder and
Pittypat tiptoed heavily about the room pulling down the shades.

"Don't do that!" shouted Scarlett, raising a red and swollen face from the pillow. "I'm not dead enough for you to pull down the shades--though I
might as well be. Oh, do go away and leave me alone!"

She  sank  her  face  into  the  pillow  again and, after a whispered conference, the two standing over her tiptoed out. She heard Melanie say to
Pittypat in a low voice as they went down the stairs:

"Aunt  Pitty,  I  wish  you wouldn't speak of Charles to her. You know how it always affects her. Poor thing, she gets that queer look and I know
she's trying not to cry. We mustn't make it harder for her."

Scarlett kicked the coverlet in impotent rage, trying to think of something bad enough to say.

"God's  nightgown!"  she  cried at last, and felt somewhat relieved. How could Melanie be content to stay at home and never have any fun and wear
crepe for her brother when she was only eighteen years old? Melanie did not seem to know, or care, that life was riding by with jingling spurs.

"But she's such a stick," thought Scarlett, pounding the pillow. "And she never was popular like me, so she doesn't miss the things I miss. And--
and besides she's got Ashley and I--I haven't got anybody!" And at this fresh woe, she broke into renewed outcries.

She  remained  gloomily in her room until afternoon and then the sight of the returning picnickers with wagons piled high with pine boughs, vines
and  ferns  did  not  cheer  her.  Everyone looked happily tired as they waved to her again and she returned their greetings drearily. Life was a
hopeless affair and certainly not worth living.

Deliverance  came in the form she least expected when, during the after-dinner-nap period, Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing drove up. Startled at
having  callers  at  such  an  hour, Melanie, Scarlett and Aunt Pittypat roused themselves, hastily hooked their basques, smoothed their hair and
descended to the parlor.

"Mrs. Bonnell's children have the measles," said Mrs. Merriwether abruptly, showing plainly that she held Mrs. Bonnell personally responsible for
permitting such a thing to happen.

"And  the  McLure  girls  have been called to Virginia," said Mrs. Elsing in her die-away voice, fanning herself languidly as if neither this nor
anything else mattered very much. "Dallas McLure is wounded."

"How dreadful!" chorused their hostesses. "Is poor Dallas--"

"No.  Just  through  the  shoulder,"  said Mrs. Merriwether briskly. "But it couldn't possibly have happened at a worse time. The girls are going
North  to  bring  him  home. But, skies above, we haven't time to sit here talking. We must hurry back to the Armory and get the decorating done.
Pitty, we need you and Melly tonight to take Mrs. Bonnell's and the McLure girls' places."

"Oh, but, Dolly, we can't go."

"Don't say 'can't' to me, Pittypat Hamilton," said Mrs. Merriwether vigorously. "We need you to watch the darkies with the refreshments. That was
what Mrs. Bonnell was to do. And Melly, you must take the McLure girls' booth."

"Oh, we just couldn't--with poor Charlie dead only a--"

"I know how you feel but there isn't any sacrifice too great for the Cause," broke in Mrs. Elsing in a soft voice that settled matters.

"Oh, we'd love to help but--why can't you get some sweet pretty girls to take the booths?"

Mrs. Merriwether snorted a trumpeting snort.

"I  don't know what's come over the young people these days. They have no sense of responsibility. All the girls who haven't already taken booths
have  more  excuses  than  you  could shake a stick at. Oh, they don't fool me! They just don't want to be hampered in making up to the officers,
that's all. And they're afraid their new dresses won't show off behind booth counters. I wish to goodness that blockade runner--what's his name?"

"Captain Butler," supplied Mrs. Elsing.

"I  wish  he'd  bring  in more hospital supplies and less hoop skirts and lace. If I've had to look at one dress today I've had to look at twenty
dresses  that  he  ran  in.  Captain Butler--I'm sick of the name. Now, Pitty, I haven't time to argue. You must come. Everybody will understand.
Nobody  will  see  you  in the back room anyway, and Melly won't be conspicuous. The poor McLure girls' booth is way down at the end and not very
pretty so nobody will notice you."

"I  think  we should go," said Scarlett, trying to curb her eagerness and to keep her face earnest and simple. "It is the least we can do for the
hospital."

Neither  of  the  visiting  ladies  had even mentioned her name, and they turned and looked sharply at her. Even in their extremity, they had not
considered asking a widow of scarcely a year to appear at a social function. Scarlett bore their gaze with a wide-eyed childlike expression.

"I  think we should go and help to make it a success, all of us. I think I should go in the booth with Melly because--well, I think it would look
better for us both to be there instead of just one. Don't you think so, Melly?"

"Well," began Melly helplessly. The idea of appearing publicly at a social gathering while in mourning was so unheard of she was bewildered.

"Scarlett's  right," said Mrs. Merriwether, observing signs of weakening. She rose and jerked her hoops into place. "Both of you--all of you must
come.  Now,  Pitty, don't start your excuses again. Just think how much the hospital needs money for new beds and drugs. And I know Charlie would
like you to help the Cause he died for."

"Well," said Pittypat, helpless as always in the presence of a stronger personality, "if you think people will understand."

"Too  good to be true! Too good to be true!" said Scarlett's joyful heart as she slipped unobtrusively into the pink-and-yellow-draped booth that
was  to  have been the McLure girls'. Actually she was at a party! After a year's seclusion, after crepe and hushed voices and nearly going crazy
with  boredom,  she was actually at a party, the biggest party Atlanta had ever seen. And she could see people and many lights and hear music and
view for herself the lovely laces and frocks and frills that the famous Captain Butler had run through the blockade on his last trip.

She  sank  down on one of the little stools behind the counter of the booth and looked up and down the long hall which, until this afternoon, had
been  a  bare  and  ugly  drill room. How the ladies must have worked today to bring it to its present beauty. It looked lovely. Every candle and
candlestick  in  Atlanta  must be in this hall tonight, she thought, silver ones with a dozen sprangling arms, china ones with charming figurines
clustering  their  bases,  old  brass stands, erect and dignified, laden with candles of all sizes and colors, smelling fragrantly of bayberries,
standing  on  the  gun  racks that ran the length of the hall, on the long flower-decked tables, on booth counters, even on the sills of the open
windows where the draughts of warm summer air were just strong enough to make them flare.

In  the  center  of  the  hall  the  huge ugly lamp, hanging from the ceiling by rusty chains, was completely transformed by twining ivy and wild
grapevines that were already withering from the heat. The walls were banked with pine branches that gave out a spicy smell, making the corners of
the  room  into  pretty  bowers  where  the  chaperons  and  old  ladies would sit. Long graceful ropes of ivy and grapevine and smilax were hung
everywhere,  in looping festoons on the walls, draped above the windows, twined in scallops all over the brightly colored cheesecloth booths. And
everywhere amid the greenery, on flags and bunting, blazed the bright stars of the Confederacy on their background of red and blue.

The  raised  platform for the musicians was especially artistic. It was completely hidden from view by the banked greenery and starry bunting and
Scarlett  knew that every potted and tubbed plant in town was there, coleus, geranium, hydrangea, oleander, elephant ear--even Mrs. Elsing's four
treasured rubber plants, which were given posts of honor at the four corners.

At  the  other  end  of  the  hall from the platform, the ladies had eclipsed themselves. On this wall hung large pictures of President Davis and
Georgia's  own  "Little  Alec"  Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy. Above them was an enormous flag and, beneath, on long tables was the
loot  of  the  gardens  of the town, ferns, banks of roses, crimson and yellow and white, proud sheaths of golden gladioli, masses of varicolored
nasturtiums,  tall  stiff hollyhocks rearing deep maroon and creamy heads above the other flowers. Among them, candles burned serenely like altar
fires. The two faces looked down on the scene, two faces as different as could be possible in two men at the helm of so momentous an undertaking:
Davis  with  the flat cheeks and cold eyes of an ascetic, his thin proud lips set firmly; Stephens with dark burning eyes deep socketed in a face
that had known nothing but sickness and pain and had triumphed over them with humor and with fire--two faces that were greatly loved.

The elderly ladies of the committee in whose hands rested the responsibility for the whole bazaar rustled in as importantly as full-rigged ships,
hurried  the  belated  young  matrons  and  giggling  girls  into  their  booths,  and then swept through the doors into the back rooms where the
refreshments were being laid out. Aunt Pitty panted out after them.

The  musicians clambered upon their platform, black, grinning, their fat cheeks already shining with perspiration, and began tuning their fiddles
and  sawing  and whanging with their bows in anticipatory importance. Old Levi, Mrs. Merriwether's coachman, who had led the orchestras for every
bazaar,  ball  and wedding since Atlanta was named Marthasville, rapped with his bow for attention. Few except the ladies who were conducting the
bazaar  had  arrived  yet, but all eyes turned toward him. Then the fiddles, bull fiddles, accordions, banjos and knuckle-bones broke into a slow
rendition  of  "Lorena"--too  slow for dancing, the dancing would come later when the booths were emptied of their wares. Scarlett felt her heart
beat faster as the sweet melancholy of the waltz came to her:


"The years creep slowly by, Lorena! The snow is on the grass again. The sun's far down the sky, Lorena . . ."


One-two-three,  one-two-three,  dip-sway--three,  turn--two-three.  What  a beautiful waltz! She extended her hands slightly, closed her eyes and
swayed  with the sad haunting rhythm. There was something about the tragic melody and Lorena's lost love that mingled with her own excitement and
brought a lump into her throat.

Then, as if brought into being by the waltz music, sounds floated in from the shadowy moonlit street below, the trample of horses' hooves and the
sound  of  carriage  wheels, laughter on the warm sweet air and the soft acrimony of negro voices raised in argument over hitching places for the
horses.  There was confusion on the stairs and light-hearted merriment, the mingling of girls' fresh voices with the bass notes of their escorts,
airy cries of greeting and squeals of joy as girls recognized friends from whom they had parted only that afternoon.

Suddenly  the  hall  burst  into life. It was full of girls, girls who floated in butterfly bright dresses, hooped out enormously, lace pantalets
peeping  from  beneath;  round  little  white  shoulders bare, and faintest traces of soft little bosoms showing above lace flounces; lace shawls
carelessly  hanging  from  arms;  fans spangled and painted, fans of swan's-down and peacock feathers, dangling at wrists by tiny velvet ribbons;
girls with masses of golden curls about their necks and fringed gold earbobs that tossed and danced with their dancing curls. Laces and silks and
braid  and  ribbons, all blockade run, all the more precious and more proudly worn because of it, finery flaunted with an added pride as an extra
affront to the Yankees.

Not all the flowers of the town were standing in tribute to the leaders of the Confederacy. The smallest, the most fragrant blossoms bedecked the
girls.  Tea  roses  tucked  behind  pink ears, cape jessamine and bud roses in round little garlands over cascades of side curls, blossoms thrust
demurely  into  satin  sashes,  flowers that before the night was over would find their way into the breast pockets of gray uniforms as treasured
souvenirs.

There  were  so many uniforms in the crowd--so many uniforms on so many men whom Scarlett knew, men she had met on hospital cots, on the streets,
at  the  drill  ground. They were such resplendent uniforms, brave with shining buttons and dazzling with twined gold braid on cuffs and collars,
the  red  and yellow and blue stripes on the trousers, for the different branches of the service, setting off the gray to perfection. Scarlet and
gold sashes swung to and fro, sabers glittered and banged against shining boots, spurs rattled and jingled.

Such  handsome  men, thought Scarlett, with a swell of pride in her heart, as the men called greetings, waved to friends, bent low over the hands
of  elderly ladies. All of them were so young looking, even with their sweeping yellow mustaches and full black and brown beards, so handsome, so
reckless,  with  their arms in slings, with head bandages startlingly white across sun-browned faces. Some of them were on crutches and how proud
were  the  girls  who solicitously slowed their steps to their escorts' hopping pace! There was one gaudy splash of color among the uniforms that
put  the  girls'  bright  finery  to shame and stood out in the crowd like a tropical bird--a Louisiana Zouave, with baggy blue and white striped
pants,  cream  gaiters  and tight little red jacket, a dark, grinning little monkey of a man, with his arm in a black silk sling. He was Maybelle
Merriwether's especial beau, Rene Picard. The whole hospital must have turned out, at least everybody who could walk, and all the men on furlough
and sick leave and all the railroad and mail service and hospital and commissary departments between here and Macon. How pleased the ladies would
be! The hospital should make a mint of money tonight.

There was a ruffle of drums from the street below, the tramp of feet, the admiring cries of coachmen. A bugle blared and a bass voice shouted the
command  to  break  ranks. In a moment, the Home Guard and the militia unit in their bright uniforms shook the narrow stairs and crowded into the
room,  bowing,  saluting,  shaking  hands.  There  were boys in the Home Guard, proud to be playing at war, promising themselves they would be in
Virginia  this  time  next  year,  if  the war would just last that long; old men with white beards, wishing they were younger, proud to march in
uniform  in  the  reflected  glory  of sons at the front. In the militia, there were many middle-aged men and some older men but there was a fair
sprinkling  of men of military age who did not carry themselves quite so jauntily as their elders or their juniors. Already people were beginning
to whisper, asking why they were not with Lee.

How  would they all get into the hall! It had seemed such a large place a few minutes before, and now it was packed, warm with summer-night odors
of  sachet  and  cologne water and hair pomade and burning bayberry candles, fragrant with flowers, faintly dusty as many feet trod the old drill
floors.  The  din  and hubbub of voices made it almost impossible to hear anything and, as if feeling the joy and excitement of the occasion, old
Levi choked off "Lorena" in mid-bar, rapped sharply with his bow and, sawing away for dear life, the orchestra burst into "Bonnie Blue Flag."

A  hundred  voices took it up, sang it, shouted it like a cheer. The Home Guard bugler, climbing onto the platform, caught up with the music just
as the chorus began, and the high silver notes soared out thrillingly above the massed singing, causing goose bumps to break out on bare arms and
cold chills of deeply felt emotion to fly down spines:


"Hurrah! Hurrah! For the Southern Rights, hurrah! Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag That bears a single star!"


They  crashed  into  the second verse and Scarlett, singing with the rest, heard the high sweet soprano of Melanie mounting behind her, clear and
true  and  thrilling as the bugle notes. Turning, she saw that Melly was standing with her hands clasped to her breast, her eyes closed, and tiny
tears  oozing  from  the corners. She smiled at Scarlett, whimsically, as the music ended, making a little moue of apology as she dabbed with her
handkerchief.

"I'm so happy," she whispered, "and so proud of the soldiers that I just can't help crying about it."

There was a deep, almost fanatic glow in her eyes that for a moment lit up her plain little face and made it beautiful.

The same look was on the faces of all the women as the song ended, tears of pride on cheeks, pink or wrinkled, smiles on lips, a deep hot glow in
eyes,  as  they  turned  to their men, sweetheart to lover, mother to son, wife to husband. They were all beautiful with the blinding beauty that
transfigures even the plainest woman when she is utterly protected and utterly loved and is giving back that love a thousandfold.

They loved their men, they believed in them, they trusted them to the last breaths of their bodies. How could disaster ever come to women such as
they  when  their stalwart gray line stood between them and the Yankees? Had there ever been such men as these since the first dawn of the world,
so  heroic,  so reckless, so gallant, so tender? How could anything but overwhelming victory come to a Cause as just and right as theirs? A Cause
they  loved  as  much  as  they loved their men, a Cause they served with their hands and their hearts, a Cause they talked about, thought about,
dreamed about--a Cause to which they would sacrifice these men if need be, and bear their loss as proudly as the men bore their battle flags.

It was high tide of devotion and pride in their hearts, high tide of the Confederacy, for final victory was at hand. Stonewall Jackson's triumphs
in  the  Valley  and the defeat of the Yankees in the Seven Days' Battle around Richmond showed that clearly. How could it be otherwise with such
leaders as Lee and Jackson? One more victory and the Yankees would be on their knees yelling for peace and the men would be riding home and there
would be kissing and laughter. One more victory and the war was over!

Of  course,  there were empty chairs and babies who would never see their fathers' faces and unmarked graves by lonely Virginia creeks and in the
still  mountains  of  Tennessee, but was that too great a price to pay for such a Cause? Silks for the ladies and tea and sugar were hard to get,
but  that  was  something  to joke about. Besides, the dashing blockade runners were bringing in these very things under the Yankees' disgruntled
noses,  and  that  made the possession of them many times more thrilling. Soon Raphael Semmes and the Confederate Navy would tend to those Yankee
gunboats and the ports would be wide open. And England was coming in to help the Confederacy win the war, because the English mills were standing
idle for want of Southern cotton. And naturally the British aristocracy sympathized with the Confederacy, as one aristocrat with another, against
a race of dollar lovers like the Yankees.

So  the women swished their silks and laughed and, looking on their men with hearts bursting with pride, they knew that love snatched in the face
of danger and death was doubly sweet for the strange excitement that went with it.

When  first  she  looked  at the crowd, Scarlett's heart had thump-thumped with the unaccustomed excitement of being at a party, but as she half-
comprehendingly saw the high-hearted look on the faces about her, her joy began to evaporate. Every woman present was blazing with an emotion she
did  not feel. It bewildered and depressed her. Somehow, the ball did not seem so pretty nor the girls so dashing, and the white heat of devotion
to the Cause that was still shining on every face seemed--why, it just seemed silly!

In  a  sudden  flash of self-knowledge that made her mouth pop open with astonishment, she realized that she did not share with these women their
fierce  pride, their desire to sacrifice themselves and everything they had for the Cause. Before horror made her think: "No--no! I mustn't think
such  things!  They're wrong--sinful," she knew the Cause meant nothing at all to her and that she was bored with hearing other people talk about
it with that fanatic look in their eyes. The Cause didn't seem sacred to her. The war didn't seem to be a holy affair, but a nuisance that killed
men  senselessly and cost money and made luxuries hard to get. She saw that she was tired of the endless knitting and the endless bandage rolling
and  lint  picking  that  roughened  the  cuticle  of her nails. And oh, she was so tired of the hospital! Tired and bored and nauseated with the
sickening gangrene smells and the endless moaning, frightened by the look that coming death gave to sunken faces.

She  looked  furtively around her, as the treacherous, blasphemous thoughts rushed through her mind, fearful that someone might find them written
clearly upon her face. Oh, why couldn't she feel like those other women! They were whole hearted and sincere in their devotion to the Cause. They
really  meant  everything  they  said  and  did.  And if anyone should ever suspect that she-- No, no one must ever know! She must go on making a
pretense  of  enthusiasm and pride in the Cause which she could not feel, acting out her part of the widow of a Confederate officer who bears her
grief bravely, whose heart is in the grave, who feels that her husband's death meant nothing if it aided the Cause to triumph.

Oh,  why  was  she  different,  apart  from  these loving women? She could never love anything or anyone so selflessly as they did. What a lonely
feeling  it  was--and  she  had  never been lonely either in body or spirit before. At first she tried to stifle the thoughts, but the hard self-
honesty  that  lay at the base of her nature would not permit it. And so, while the bazaar went on, while she and Melanie waited on the customers
who came to their booth, her mind was busily working, trying to justify herself to herself--a task which she seldom found difficult.

The  other  women were simply silly and hysterical with their talk of patriotism and the Cause, and the men were almost as bad with their talk of
vital  issues  and  States' Rights. She, Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton, alone had good hard-headed Irish sense. She wasn't going to make a fool out of
herself about the Cause, but neither was she going to make a fool out of herself by admitting her true feelings. She was hard-headed enough to be
practical  about  the  situation,  and  no  one  would ever know how she felt. How surprised the bazaar would be if they knew what she really was
thinking!  How  shocked  if she suddenly climbed on the bandstand and declared that she thought the war ought to stop, so everybody could go home
and tend to their cotton and there could be parties and beaux again and plenty of pale green dresses.

For  a moment, her self-justification buoyed her up but still she looked about the hall with distaste. The McLure girls' booth was inconspicuous,
as Mrs. Merriwether had said, and there were long intervals when no one came to their corner and Scarlett had nothing to do but look enviously on
the  happy  throng.  Melanie sensed her moodiness but, crediting it to longing for Charlie, did not try to engage her in conversation. She busied
herself  arranging  the  articles  in the booth in more attractive display, while Scarlett sat and looked glumly around the room. Even the banked
flowers below the pictures of Mr. Davis and Mr. Stephens displeased her.

"It  looks  like  an  altar,"  she  sniffed.  "And the way they all carry on about those two, they might as well be the Father and the Son!" Then
smitten with sudden fright at her irreverence she began hastily to cross herself by way of apology but caught herself in time.

"Well,  it's  true,"  she  argued  with  her  conscience.  "Everybody carries on like they were holy and they aren't anything but men, and mighty
unattractive looking ones at that."

Of  course,  Mr.  Stephens couldn't help how he looked for he had been an invalid all his life, but Mr. Davis-- She looked up at the cameo clean,
proud face. It was his goatee that annoyed her the most. Men should either be clean shaven, mustached or wear full beards.

"That  little wisp looks like it was just the best he could do," she thought, not seeing in his face the cold hard intelligence that was carrying
the weight of a new nation.

No,  she  was  not happy now, and at first she had been radiant with the pleasure of being in a crowd. Now just being present was not enough. She
was at the bazaar but not a part of it. No one paid her any attention and she was the only young unmarried woman present who did not have a beau.
And  all  her  life  she  had  enjoyed  the center of the stage. It wasn't fair! She was seventeen years old and her feet were patting the floor,
wanting  to  skip  and  dance.  She  was  seventeen  years  old  and she had a husband lying at Oakland Cemetery and a baby in his cradle at Aunt
Pittypat's  and  everyone  thought she should be content with her lot. She had a whiter bosom and a smaller waist and a tinier foot than any girl
present, but for all they mattered she might just as well be lying beside Charles with "Beloved Wife of" carved over her.

She  wasn't  a  girl who could dance and flirt and she wasn't a wife who could sit with other wives and criticize the dancing and flirting girls.
And  she wasn't old enough to be a widow. Widows should be old--so terribly old they didn't want to dance and flirt and be admired. Oh, it wasn't
fair  that  she  should have to sit here primly and be the acme of widowed dignity and propriety when she was only seventeen. It wasn't fair that
she must keep her voice low and her eyes cast modestly down, when men, attractive ones, too, came to their booth.

Every  girl  in Atlanta was three deep in men. Even the plainest girls were carrying on like belles--and, oh, worst of all, they were carrying on
in such lovely, lovely dresses!

Here  she  sat  like  a crow with hot black taffeta to her wrists and buttoned up to her chin, with not even a hint of lace or braid, not a jewel
except  Ellen's  onyx mourning brooch, watching tacky-looking girls hanging on the arms of good-looking men. All because Charles Hamilton had had
the measles. He didn't even die in a fine glow of gallantry in battle, so she could brag about him.

Rebelliously she leaned her elbows on the counter and looked at the crowd, flouting Mammy's oft-repeated admonition against leaning on elbows and
making them ugly and wrinkled. What did it matter if they did get ugly? She'd probably never get a chance to show them again. She looked hungrily
at the frocks floating by, butter-yellow watered silks with garlands of rosebuds; pink satins with eighteen flounces edged with tiny black velvet
ribbons;  baby  blue  taffeta, ten yards in the skirt and foamy with cascading lace; exposed bosoms; seductive flowers. Maybelle Merriwether went
toward  the next booth on the arm of the Zouave, in an apple-green tarlatan so wide that it reduced her waist to nothingness. It was showered and
flounced  with  cream-colored  Chantilly lace that had come from Charleston on the last blockader, and Maybelle was flaunting it as saucily as if
she and not the famous Captain Butler had run the blockade.

"How  sweet  I'd  look in that dress," thought Scarlett, a savage envy in her heart. "Her waist is as big as a cow's. That green is just my color
and  it would make my eyes look-- Why will blondes try to wear that color? Her skin looks as green as an old cheese. And to think I'll never wear
that  color  again,  not  even  when I do get out of mourning. No, not even if I do manage to get married again. Then I'll have to wear tacky old
grays and tans and lilacs."

For a brief moment she considered the unfairness of it all. How short was the time for fun, for pretty clothes, for dancing, for coquetting! Only
a few, too few years! Then you married and wore dull-colored dresses and had babies that ruined your waist line and sat in corners at dances with
other  sober  matrons  and only emerged to dance with your husband or with old gentlemen who stepped on your feet. If you didn't do these things,
the  other  matrons  talked about you and then your reputation was ruined and your family disgraced. It seemed such a terrible waste to spend all
your  little  girlhood  learning how to be attractive and how to catch men and then only use the knowledge for a year or two. When she considered
her  training  at the hands of Ellen and Mammy, she knew it had been thorough and good because it had always reaped results. There were set rules
to be followed, and if you followed them success crowned your efforts.

With  old  ladies  you  were  sweet  and guileless and appeared as simple minded as possible, for old ladies were sharp and they watched girls as
jealously as cats, ready to pounce on any indiscretion of tongue or eye. With old gentlemen, a girl was pert and saucy and almost, but not quite,
flirtatious,  so that the old fools' vanities would be tickled. It made them feel devilish and young and they pinched your cheek and declared you
were  a  minx.  And,  of course, you always blushed on such occasions, otherwise they would pinch you with more pleasure than was proper and then
tell their sons that you were fast.

With  young  girls  and young married women, you slopped over with sugar and kissed them every time you met them, even if it was ten times a day.
And you put your arms about their waists and suffered them to do the same to you, no matter how much you disliked it. You admired their frocks or
their  babies  indiscriminately  and  teased about beaux and complimented husbands and giggled modestly and denied that you had any charms at all
compared with theirs. And, above all, you never said what you really thought about anything, any more than they said what they really thought.

Other  women's husbands you let severely alone, even if they were your own discarded beaux, and no matter how temptingly attractive they were. If
you were too nice to young husbands, their wives said you were fast and you got a bad reputation and never caught any beaux of your own.

But  with  young bachelors--ah, that was a different matter! You could laugh softly at them and when they came flying to see why you laughed, you
could refuse to tell them and laugh harder and keep them around indefinitely trying to find out. You could promise, with your eyes, any number of
exciting  things  that would make a man maneuver to get you alone. And, having gotten you alone, you could be very, very hurt or very, very angry
when he tried to kiss you. You could make him apologize for being a cur and forgive him so sweetly that he would hang around trying to kiss you a
second time. Sometimes, but not often, you did let him kiss you. (Ellen and Mammy had not taught her that but she learned it was effective.) Then
you  cried  and  declared  you  didn't  know what had come over you and that he couldn't ever respect you again. Then he had to dry your eyes and
usually  he  proposed,  to  show just how much he did respect you. And then there were-- Oh, there were so many things to do to bachelors and she
knew  them  all,  the nuance of the sidelong glance, the half-smile behind the fan, the swaying of the hips so that skirts swung like a bell, the
tears, the laughter, the flattery, the sweet sympathy. Oh, all the tricks that never failed to work--except with Ashley.

No,  it didn't seem right to learn all these smart tricks, use them so briefly and then put them away forever. How wonderful it would be never to
marry  but  to  go  on being lovely in pale green dresses and forever courted by handsome men. But, if you went on too long, you got to be an old
maid  like  India Wilkes and everyone said "poor thing" in that smug hateful way. No, after all it was better to marry and keep your self-respect
even if you never had any more fun.

Oh, what a mess life was! Why had she been such an idiot as to marry Charles of all people and have her life end at sixteen?

Her  indignant  and  hopeless reverie was broken when the crowd began pushing back against the walls, the ladies carefully holding their hoops so
that  no  careless contact should turn them up against their bodies and show more pantalets than was proper. Scarlett tiptoed above the crowd and
saw  the captain of the militia mounting the orchestra platform. He shouted orders and half of the Company fell into line. For a few minutes they
went  through  a  brisk  drill that brought perspiration to their foreheads and cheers and applause from the audience. Scarlett clapped her hands
dutifully  with  the  rest  and,  as  the  soldiers  pushed forward toward the punch and lemonade booths after they were dismissed, she turned to
Melanie, feeling that she had better begin her deception about the Cause as soon as possible.

"They looked fine, didn't they?" she said.

Melanie was fussing about with the knitted things on the counter.

"Most of them would look a lot finer in gray uniforms and in Virginia," she said, and she did not trouble to lower her voice.

Several  of  the  proud  mothers  of  members of the militia were standing close by and overheard the remark. Mrs. Guinan turned scarlet and then
white, for her twenty-five-year-old Willie was in the company.

Scarlett was aghast at such words coming from Melly of all people.

"Why, Melly!"

"You know it's true, Scarlet. I don't mean the little boys and the old gentlemen. But a lot of the militia are perfectly able to tote a rifle and
that's what they ought to be doing this minute."

"But--but--"  began  Scarlett,  who had never considered the matter before. "Somebody's got to stay home to--" What was it Willie Guinan had told
her by way of excusing his presence in Atlanta? "Somebody's got to stay home to protect the state from invasion."

"Nobody's invading us and nobody's going to," said Melly coolly, looking toward a group of the militia. "And the best way to keep out invaders is
to  go to Virginia and beat the Yankees there. And as for all this talk about the militia staying here to keep the darkies from rising--why, it's
the  silliest  thing  I  ever  heard of. Why should our people rise? It's just a good excuse for cowards. I'll bet we could lick the Yankees in a
month if all the militia of all the states went to Virginia. So there!"

"Why, Melly!" cried Scarlett again, staring.

Melly's soft dark eyes were flashing angrily. "My husband wasn't afraid to go and neither was yours. And I'd rather they'd both be dead than here
at home-- Oh, darling, I'm sorry. How thoughtless and cruel of me!"

She  stroked Scarlett's arm appealingly and Scarlett stared at her. But it was not of dead Charles she was thinking. It was of Ashley. Suppose he
too were to die? She turned quickly and smiled automatically as Dr. Meade walked up to their booth.

"Well,  girls," he greeted them, "it was nice of you to come. I know what a sacrifice it must have been for you to come out tonight. But it's all
for  the  Cause. And I'm going to tell you a secret. I've a surprise way for making some more money tonight for the hospital, but I'm afraid some
of the ladies are going to be shocked about it."

He stopped and chuckled as he tugged at his gray goatee.

"Oh, what? Do tell!"

"On second thought I believe I'll keep you guessing, too. But you girls must stand up for me if the church members want to run me out of town for
doing it. However, it's for the hospital. You'll see. Nothing like this has ever been done before."

He  went off pompously toward a group of chaperons in one corner, and just as the two girls had turned to each other to discuss the possibilities
of  the  secret,  two  old gentlemen bore down on the booth, declaring in loud voices that they wanted ten miles of tatting. Well, after all, old
gentlemen  were  better  than no gentlemen at all, thought Scarlett, measuring out the tatting and submitting demurely to being chucked under the
chin.  The  old  blades  charged  off  toward  the  lemonade  booth and others took their places at the counter. Their booth did not have so many
customers  as  did  the  other  booths where the tootling laugh of Maybelle Merriwether sounded and Fanny Elsing's giggles and the Whiting girls'
repartee  made  merriment.  Melly  sold  useless  stuff to men who could have no possible use for it as quietly and serenely as a shopkeeper, and
Scarlett patterned her conduct on Melly's.

There  were  crowds in front of every other counter but theirs, girls chattering, men buying. The few who came to them talked about how they went
to  the  university  with Ashley and what a fine soldier he was or spoke in respectful tones of Charles and how great a loss to Atlanta his death
had been.

Then the music broke into the rollicking strains of "Johnny Booker, he'p dis Nigger!" and Scarlett thought she would scream. She wanted to dance.
She  wanted to dance. She looked across the floor and tapped her foot to the music and her green eyes blazed so eagerly that they fairly snapped.
All  the  way  across the floor, a man, newly come and standing in the doorway, saw them, started in recognition and watched closely the slanting
eyes in the sulky, rebellious face. Then he grinned to himself as he recognized the invitation that any male could read.

He  was  dressed  in  black broadcloth, a tall man, towering over the officers who stood near him, bulky in the shoulders but tapering to a small
waist  and  absurdly  small  feet  in  varnished boots. His severe black suit, with fine ruffled shirt and trousers smartly strapped beneath high
insteps,  was  oddly at variance with his physique and face, for he was foppishly groomed, the clothes of a dandy on a body that was powerful and
latently  dangerous  in  its  lazy  grace.  His  hair was jet black, and his black mustache was small and closely clipped, almost foreign looking
compared  with  the  dashing, swooping mustaches of the cavalrymen near by. He looked, and was, a man of lusty and unashamed appetites. He had an
air  of  utter  assurance, of displeasing insolence about him, and there was a twinkle of malice in his bold eyes as he stared at Scarlett, until
finally, feeling his gaze, she looked toward him.

Somewhere  in  her mind, the bell of recognition rang, but for the moment she could not recall who he was. But he was the first man in months who
had  displayed  an interest in her, and she threw him a gay smile. She made a little curtsy as he bowed, and then, as he straightened and started
toward her with a peculiarly lithe Indian-like gait, her hand went to her mouth in horror, for she knew who he was.

Thunderstruck,  she  stood  as if paralyzed while he made his way through the crowd. Then she turned blindly, bent on flight into the refreshment
rooms, but her skirt caught on a nail of the booth. She jerked furiously at it, tearing it and, in an instant, he was beside her.

"Permit me," he said bending over and disentangling the flounce. "I hardly hoped that you would recall me, Miss O'Hara."

His  voice  was  oddly  pleasant  to  the  ear,  the  well-modulated  voice of a gentleman, resonant and overlaid with the flat slow drawl of the
Charlestonian.

She  looked  up  at  him  imploringly, her face crimson with the shame of their last meeting, and met two of the blackest eyes she had ever seen,
dancing  in  merciless  merriment.  Of all the people in the world to turn up here, this terrible person who had witnessed that scene with Ashley
which  still  gave her nightmares; this odious wretch who ruined girls and was not received by nice people; this despicable man who had said, and
with good cause, that she was not a lady.

At the sound of his voice, Melanie turned and for the first time in her life Scarlett thanked God for the existence of her sister-in-law.

"Why--it's--it's Mr. Rhett Butler, isn't it?" said Melanie with a little smile, putting out her hand. "I met you--"

"On the happy occasion of the announcement of your betrothal," he finished, bending over her hand. "It is kind of you to recall me."

"And what are you doing so far from Charleston, Mr. Butler?"

"A  boring  matter  of business, Mrs. Wilkes. I will be in and out of your town from now on. I find I must not only bring in goods but see to the
disposal of them."

"Bring  in--"  began Melly, her brow wrinkling, and then she broke into a delighted smile. "Why, you--you must be the famous Captain Butler we've
been  hearing  so  much about--the blockade runner. Why, every girl here is wearing dresses you brought in. Scarlett, aren't you thrilled--what's
the matter, dear? Are you faint? Do sit down."

Scarlett  sank  to  the stool, her breath coming so rapidly she feared the lacings of her stays would burst. Oh, what a terrible thing to happen!
She  had  never thought to meet this man again. He picked up her black fan from the counter and began fanning her solicitously, too solicitously,
his face grave but his eyes still dancing.

"It is quite warm in here," he said. "No wonder Miss O'Hara is faint. May I lead you to a window?"

"No," said Scarlett, so rudely that Melly stared.

"She  is not Miss O'Hara any longer," said Melly. "She is Mrs. Hamilton. She is my sister now," and Melly bestowed one of her fond little glances
on her. Scarlett felt that she would strangle at the expression on Captain Butler's swarthy piratical face.

"I am sure that is a great gain to two charming ladies," said he, making a slight bow. That was the kind of remark all men made, but when he said
it it seemed to her that he meant just the opposite.

"Your husbands are here tonight, I trust, on this happy occasion? It would be a pleasure to renew acquaintances."

"My husband is in Virginia," said Melly with a proud lift of her head. "But Charles--" Her voice broke.

"He  died in camp," said Scarlett flatly. She almost snapped the words. Would this creature never go away? Melly looked at her, startled, and the
Captain made a gesture of self-reproach.

"My  dear ladies--how could I! You must forgive me. But permit a stranger to offer the comfort of saying that to die for one's country is to live
forever."

Melanie  smiled  at  him  through  sparkling tears while Scarlett felt the fox of wrath and impotent hate gnaw at her vitals. Again he had made a
graceful  remark,  the  kind  of compliment any gentleman would pay under such circumstances, but he did not mean a word of it. He was jeering at
her.  He  knew  she hadn't loved Charles. And Melly was just a big enough fool not to see through him. Oh, please God, don't let anybody else see
through  him,  she  thought with a start of terror. Would he tell what he knew? Of course he wasn't a gentleman and there was no telling what men
would  do when they weren't gentlemen. There was no standard to judge them by. She looked up at him and saw that his mouth was pulled down at the
corners  in mock sympathy, even while he swished the fan. Something in his look challenged her spirit and brought her strength back in a surge of
dislike. Abruptly she snatched the fan from his hand.

"I'm quite all right," she said tartly. "There's no need to blow my hair out of place."

"Scarlett,  darling!  Captain  Butler, you must forgive her. She--she isn't herself when she hears poor Charlie's name spoken--and perhaps, after
all,  we  shouldn't  have  come  here  tonight. We're still in mourning, you see, and it's quite a strain on her--all this gaiety and music, poor
child."

"I  quite  understand,"  he  said with elaborate gravity, but as he turned and gave Melanie a searching look that went to the bottom of her sweet
worried  eyes, his expression changed, reluctant respect and gentleness coming over his dark face. "I think you're a courageous little lady, Mrs.
Wilkes."

"Not a word about me!" thought Scarlett indignantly, as Melly smiled in confusion and answered,

"Dear  me,  no,  Captain  Butler!  The hospital committee just had to have us for this booth because at the last minute-- A pillow case? Here's a
lovely one with a flag on it."

She  turned  to  three  cavalrymen  who  appeared at her counter. For a moment, Melanie thought how nice Captain Butler was. Then she wished that
something more substantial than cheesecloth was between her skirt and the spittoon that stood just outside the booth, for the aim of the horsemen
with  amber  streams  of  tobacco juice was not so unerring as with their long horse pistols. Then she forgot about the Captain, Scarlett and the
spittoons as more customers crowded to her.

Scarlett sat quietly on the stool fanning herself, not daring to look up, wishing Captain Butler back on the deck of his ship where he belonged.

"Your husband has been dead long?"

"Oh, yes, a long time. Almost a year."

"An aeon, I'm sure."

Scarlett was not sure what an aeon was, but there was no mistaking the baiting quality of his voice, so she said nothing.

"Had you been married long? Forgive my questions but I have been away from this section for so long."

"Two months," said Scarlett, unwillingly.

"A tragedy, no less," his easy voice continued.

Oh,  damn  him, she thought violently. If he was any other man in the world I could simply freeze up and order him off. But he knows about Ashley
and he knows I didn't love Charlie. And my hands are tied. She said nothing, still looking down at her fan.

"And this is your first social appearance?"

"I know it looks quite odd," she explained rapidly. "But the McLure girls who were to take this booth were called away and there was no one else,
so Melanie and I--"

"No sacrifice is too great for the Cause."

Why,  that  was  what  Mrs. Elsing had said, but when she said it it didn't sound the same way. Hot words started to her lips but she choked them
back. After all, she was here, not for the Cause, but because she was tired of sitting home.

"I  have  always  thought,"  he  said  reflectively,  "that  the  system  of mourning, of immuring women in crepe for the rest of their lives and
forbidding them normal enjoyment is just as barbarous as the Hindu suttee."

"Settee?"

He laughed and she blushed for her ignorance. She hated people who used words unknown to her.

"In India, when a man dies he is burned, instead of buried, and his wife always climbs on the funeral pyre and is burned with him."

"How dreadful! Why do they do it? Don't the police do anything about it?"

"Of course not. A wife who didn't burn herself would be a social outcast. All the worthy Hindu matrons would talk about her for not behaving as a
well-bred  lady should--precisely as those worthy matrons in the corner would talk about you, should you appear tonight in a red dress and lead a
reel. Personally, I think suttee much more merciful than our charming Southern custom of burying widows alive!"

"How dare you say I'm buried alive!"

"How closely women crutch the very chains that bind them! You think the Hindu custom barbarous--but would you have had the courage to appear here
tonight if the Confederacy hadn't needed you?"

Arguments  of  this  character were always confusing to Scarlett. His were doubly confusing because she had a vague idea there was truth in them.
But now was the time to squelch him.

"Of course, I wouldn't have come. It would have been--well, disrespectful to--it would have seemed as if I hadn't lov--"

His  eyes  waited  on  her  words,  cynical  amusement in them, and she could not go on. He knew she hadn't loved Charlie and he wouldn't let her
pretend  to  the  nice  polite  sentiments  that she should express. What a terrible, terrible thing it was to have to do with a man who wasn't a
gentleman.  A  gentleman always appeared to believe a lady even when he knew she was lying. That was Southern chivalry. A gentleman always obeyed
the rules and said the correct things and made life easier for a lady. But this man seemed not to care for rules and evidently enjoyed talking of
things no one ever talked about.

"I am waiting breathlessly."

"I think you are horrid," she said, helplessly, dropping her eyes.

He  leaned down across the counter until his mouth was near her ear and hissed, in a very creditable imitation of the stage villains who appeared
infrequently at the Athenaeum Hall: "Fear not, fair lady! Your guilty secret is safe with me!"

"Oh," she whispered, feverishly, "how can you say such things!"

"I only thought to ease your mind. What would you have me say? 'Be mine, beautiful female, or I will reveal all?'"

She  met  his  eyes unwillingly and saw they were as teasing as a small boy's. Suddenly she laughed. It was such a silly situation, after all. He
laughed  too,  and  so  loudly  that  several of the chaperons in the corner looked their way. Observing how good a time Charles Hamilton's widow
appeared to be having with a perfect stranger, they put their heads together disapprovingly.



There was a roll of drums and many voices cried "Sh!" as Dr. Meade mounted the platform and spread out his arms for quiet.

"We  must  all  give  grateful thanks to the charming ladies whose indefatigable and patriotic efforts have made this bazaar not only a pecuniary
success," he began, "but have transformed this rough hall into a bower of loveliness, a fit garden for the charming rosebuds I see about me."

Everyone clapped approvingly.

"The  ladies  have given their best, not only of their time but of the labor of their hands, and these beautiful objects in the booths are doubly
beautiful, made as they are by the fair hands of our charming Southern women."

There were more shouts of approval, and Rhett Butler who had been lounging negligently against the counter at Scarlett's side whispered: "Pompous
goat, isn't he?"

Startled,  at first horrified, at this lese majesty toward Atlanta's most beloved citizen, she stared reprovingly at him. But the doctor did look
like a goat with his gray chin whiskers wagging away at a great rate, and with difficulty she stifled a giggle.

"But these things are not enough. The good ladies of the hospital committee, whose cool hands have soothed many a suffering brow and brought back
from  the jaws of death our brave men wounded in the bravest of all Causes, know our needs. I will not enumerate them. We must have more money to
buy  medical  supplies from England, and we have with us tonight the intrepid captain who has so successfully run the blockade for a year and who
will run it again to bring us the drugs we need. Captain Rhett Butler!"

Though  caught  unawares, the blockader made a graceful bow--too graceful, thought Scarlett, trying to analyze it. It was almost as if he overdid
his  courtesy because his contempt for everybody present was so great. There was a loud burst of applause as he bowed and a craning of necks from
the ladies in the corner. So that was who poor Charles Hamilton's widow was carrying on with! And Charlie hardly dead a year!

"We  need  more  gold  and  I  am  asking  you for it," the doctor continued. "I am asking a sacrifice but a sacrifice so small compared with the
sacrifices  our  gallant  men  in  gray are making that it will seem laughably small. Ladies, I want your jewelry. _I_ want your jewelry? No, the
Confederacy  wants  your  jewelry,  the  Confederacy  calls for it and I know no one will hold back. How fair a gem gleams on a lovely wrist! How
beautifully  gold  brooches  glitter on the bosoms of our patriotic women! But how much more beautiful is sacrifice than all the gold and gems of
the  Ind.  The  gold will be melted and the stones sold and the money used to buy drugs and other medical supplies. Ladies, there will pass among
you  two  of  our gallant wounded, with baskets and--" But the rest of his speech was lost in the storm and tumult of clapping hands and cheering
voices.

Scarlett's  first  thought  was one of deep thankfulness that mourning forbade her wearing her precious earbobs and the heavy gold chain that had
been  Grandma Robillard's and the gold and black enameled bracelets and the garnet brooch. She saw the little Zouave, a split-oak basket over his
unwounded  arm,  making  the  rounds  of  the  crowd on her side of the hall and saw women, old and young, laughing, eager, tugging at bracelets,
squealing  in  pretended pain as earrings came from pierced flesh, helping each other undo stiff necklace clasps, unpinning brooches from bosoms.
There  was  a  steady little clink-clink of metal on metal and cries of "Wait--wait! I've got it unfastened now. There!" Maybelle Merriwether was
pulling  off her lovely twin bracelets from above and below her elbows. Fanny Elsing, crying "Mamma, may I?" was tearing from her curls the seed-
pearl  ornament  set  in  heavy  gold which had been in the family for generations. As each offering went into the basket, there was applause and
cheering.

The  grinning little man was coming to their booth now, his basket heavy on his arm, and as he passed Rhett Butler a handsome gold cigar case was
thrown carelessly into the basket. When he came to Scarlett and rested his basket upon the counter, she shook her head throwing wide her hands to
show that she had nothing to give. It was embarrassing to be the only person present who was giving nothing. And then she saw the bright gleam of
her wide gold wedding ring.

For  a  confused  moment  she  tried  to  remember Charles' face--how he had looked when he slipped it on her finger. But the memory was blurred,
blurred  by  the sudden feeling of irritation that memory of him always brought to her. Charles--he was the reason why life was over for her, why
she was an old woman.

With a sudden wrench she seized the ring but it stuck. The Zouave was moving toward Melanie.

"Wait!"  cried  Scarlett.  "I  have something for you!" The ring came off and, as she started to throw it into the basket, heaped up with chains,
watches,  rings,  pins and bracelets, she caught Rhett Butler's eye. His lips were twisted in a slight smile. Defiantly, she tossed the ring onto
the top of the pile.

"Oh,  my  darling!"  whispered  Molly,  clutching  her  arm,  her  eyes  blazing with love and pride. "You brave, brave girl! Wait--please, wait,
Lieutenant Picard! I have something for you, too!"

She  was  tugging at her own wedding ring, the ring Scarlett knew had never once left that finger since Ashley put it there. Scarlett knew, as no
one  did,  how much it meant to her. It came off with difficulty and for a brief instant was clutched tightly in the small palm. Then it was laid
gently  on  the  pile  of  jewelry. The two girls stood looking after the Zouave who was moving toward the group of elderly ladies in the corner,
Scarlett defiant, Melanie with a look more pitiful than tears. And neither expression was lost on the man who stood beside them.

"If  you  hadn't been brave enough to do it, I would never have been either," said Melly, putting her arm about Scarlett's waist and giving her a
gentle  squeeze.  For  a  moment  Scarlett  wanted  to  shake  her  off and cry "Name of God!" at the top of her lungs, as Gerald did when he was
irritated,  but  she  caught Rhett Butler's eye and managed a very sour smile. It was annoying the way Melly always misconstrued her motives--but
perhaps that was far preferable to having her suspect the truth.

"What a beautiful gesture," said Rhett Butler, softly. "It is such sacrifices as yours that hearten our brave lads in gray."

Hot  words  bubbled  to  her  lips  and  it  was with difficulty that she checked them. There was mockery in everything he said. She disliked him
heartily,  lounging  there  against the booth. But there was something stimulating about him, something warm and vital and electric. All that was
Irish in her rose to the challenge of his black eyes. She decided she was going to take this man down a notch or two. His knowledge of her secret
gave  him an advantage over her that was exasperating, so she would have to change that by putting him at a disadvantage somehow. She stifled her
impulse to tell him exactly what she thought of him. Sugar always caught more flies than vinegar, as Mammy often said, and she was going to catch
and subdue this fly, so he could never again have her at his mercy.

"Thank  you,"  she said sweetly, deliberately misunderstanding his jibe. "A compliment like that coming from so famous a man as Captain Butler is
appreciated."

He threw back his head and laughed freely--yelped, was what Scarlett thought fiercely, her face becoming pink again.

"Why  don't you say what you really think?" he demanded, lowering his voice so that in the clatter and excitement of the collection, it came only
to  her ears. "Why don't you say I'm a damned rascal and no gentleman and that I must take myself off or you'll have one of these gallant boys in
gray call me out?"

It  was  on  the  tip  of  her  tongue to answer tartly, but she managed by heroic control to say: "Why, Captain Butler! How you do run on! As if
everybody didn't know how famous you are and how brave and what a--what a--

"I am disappointed in you," he said.

"Disappointed?"

"Yes.  On  the  occasion  of  our first eventful meeting I thought to myself that I had at last met a girl who was not only beautiful but who had
courage. And now I see that you are only beautiful."

"Do you mean to call me a coward?" She was ruffling like a hen.

"Exactly.  You lack the courage to say what you really think. When I first met you, I thought: There is a girl in a million. She isn't like these
other silly little fools who believe everything their mammas tell them and act on it, no matter how they feel. And conceal all their feelings and
desires  and  little  heartbreaks  behind a lot of sweet words. I thought: Miss O'Hara is a girl of rare spirit. She knows what she wants and she
doesn't mind speaking her mind--or throwing vases."

"Oh,"  she  said,  rage  breaking through. "Then I'll speak my mind right this minute. If you'd had any raising at all you'd never have come over
here  and  talked  to  me.  You'd  have  known I never wanted to lay eyes on you again! But you aren't a gentleman! You are just a nasty ill-bred
creature! And you think that because your rotten little boats can outrun the Yankees, you've the right to come here and jeer at men who are brave
and women who are sacrificing everything for the Cause--"

"Stop,  stop--" he begged with a grin. "You started off very nicely and said what you thought, but don't begin talking to me about the Cause. I'm
tired of hearing about it and I'll bet you are, too--"

"Why, how did--" she began, caught off her balance, and then checked herself hastily, boiling with anger at herself for falling into his trap.

"I  stood there in the doorway before you saw me and I watched you," he said. "And I watched the other girls. And they all looked as though their
faces  came  out  of one mold. Yours didn't. You have an easy face to read. You didn't have your mind on your business and I'll wager you weren't
thinking  about  our Cause or the hospital. It was all over your face that you wanted to dance and have a good time and you couldn't. So you were
mad clean through. Tell the truth. Am I not right?"

"I  have  nothing more to say to you, Captain Butler," she said as formally as she could, trying to draw the rags of her dignity about her. "Just
because you're conceited at being the 'great blockader' doesn't give you the right to insult women."

"The great blockader! That's a joke. Pray give me only one moment more of your precious time before you cast me into darkness. I wouldn't want so
charming a little patriot to be left under a misapprehension about my contribution to the Confederate Cause."

"I don't care to listen to your brags."

"Blockading is a business with me and I'm making money out of it. When I stop making money out of it, I'll quit. What do you think of that?"

"I think you're a mercenary rascal--just like the Yankees."

"Exactly," he grinned. "And the Yankees help me make my money. Why, last month I sailed my boat right into New York harbor and took on a cargo."

"What!" cried Scarlett, interested and excited in spite of herself. "Didn't they shell you?"

"My  poor  innocent!  Of  course  not.  There  are  plenty  of  sturdy Union patriots who are not averse to picking up money selling goods to the
Confederacy.  I run my boat into New York, buy from Yankee firms, sub rosa, of course, and away I go. And when that gets a bit dangerous, I go to
Nassau  where  these  same  Union  patriots  have  brought  powder and shells and hoop skirts for me. It's more convenient than going to England.
Sometimes it's a bit difficult running it into Charleston or Wilmington--but you'd be surprised how far a little gold goes."

"Oh, I knew Yankees were vile but I didn't know--"

"Why  quibble  about  the Yankees earning an honest penny selling out the Union? It won't matter in a hundred years. The result will be the same.
They know the Confederacy will be licked eventually, so why shouldn't they cash in on it?"

"Licked--us?"

"Of course."

"Will you please leave me--or will it be necessary for me to call my carriage and go home to get rid of you?"

"A  red-hot  little  Rebel," he said, with another sudden grin. He bowed and sauntered off, leaving her with her bosom heaving with impotent rage
and  indignation.  There  was  disappointment  burning  in  her  that she could not quite analyze, the disappointment of a child seeing illusions
crumble. How dared he take the glamor from the blockaders! And how dared he say the Confederacy would be licked! He should be shot for that--shot
like a traitor. She looked about the hall at the familiar faces, so assured of success, so brave, so devoted, and somehow a cold little chill set
in at her heart. Licked? These people--why, of course not! The very idea was impossible, disloyal.

"What  were  you  two  whispering  about?"  asked  Melanie,  turning  to Scarlett as her customers drifted off. "I couldn't help seeing that Mrs.
Merriwether had her eye on you all the time and, dear, you know how she talks."

"Oh,  the  man's  impossible--an  ill-bred boor," said Scarlett. "And as for old lady Merriwether, let her talk. I'm sick of acting like a ninny,
just for her benefit."

"Why, Scarlett!" cried Melanie, scandalized.

"Sh-sh," said Scarlett. "Dr. Meade is going to make another announcement."

The gathering quieted again as the doctor raised his voice, at first in thanks to the ladies who had so willingly given their jewelry.

"And  now,  ladies  and gentlemen, I am going to propose a surprise--an innovation that may shock some of you, but I ask you to remember that all
this is done for the hospital and for the benefit of our boys lying there."

Everyone edged forward, in anticipation, trying to imagine what the sedate doctor could propose that would be shocking.

"The  dancing  is  about  to  begin  and  the first number will, of course, be a reel, followed by a waltz. The dances following, the polkas, the
schottisches,  the  mazurkas,  will be preceded by short reels. I know the gentle rivalry to lead the reels very well and so--" The doctor mopped
his  brow and cast a quizzical glance at the corner, where his wife sat among the chaperons. "Gentlemen, if you wish to lead a reel with the lady
of your choice, you must bargain for her. I will be auctioneer and the proceeds will go to the hospital."

Fans  stopped in mid-swish and a ripple of excited murmuring ran through the hall. The chaperons' corner was in tumult and Mrs. Meade, anxious to
support  her  husband  in an action of which she heartily disapproved, was at a disadvantage. Mrs. Elsing, Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Whiting were
red  with  indignation. But suddenly the Home Guard gave a cheer and it was taken up by the other uniformed guests. The young girls clapped their
hands and jumped excitedly.

"Don't  you  think  it's--it's  just--just  a  little  like  a slave auction?" whispered Melanie, staring uncertainly at the embattled doctor who
heretofore had been perfect in her eyes.

Scarlett said nothing but her eyes glittered and her heart contracted with a little pain. If only she were not a widow. If only she were Scarlett
O'Hara  again,  out  there on the floor in an apple-green dress with dark-green velvet ribbons dangling from her bosom and tuberoses in her black
hair--she'd  lead that reel. Yes, indeed! There'd be a dozen men battling for her and paying over money to the doctor. Oh, to have to sit here, a
wallflower against her will and see Fanny or Maybelle lead the first reel as the belle of Atlanta!

Above  the  tumult  sounded  the  voice  of  the  little  Zouave,  his  Creole  accent very obvious: "Eef I may--twenty dollars for Mees Maybelle
Merriwether."

Maybelle  collapsed  with  blushes  against Fanny's shoulder and the two girls hid their faces in each other's necks and giggled, as other voices
began  calling other names, other amounts of money. Dr. Meade had begun to smile again, ignoring completely the indignant whispers that came from
the Ladies' Hospital Committee in the corner.

At  first, Mrs. Merriwether had stated flatly and loudly that her Maybelle would never take part in such a proceeding; but as Maybelle's name was
called  most  often  and the amount went up to seventy-five dollars, her protests began to dwindle. Scarlett leaned her elbows on the counter and
almost glared at the excited laughing crowd surging about the platform, their hands full of Confederate paper money.

Now,  they  would  all  dance--except her and the old ladies. Now everyone would have a good time, except her. She saw Rhett Butler standing just
below  the  doctor and, before she could change the expression of her face, he saw her and one corner of his mouth went down and one eyebrow went
up.  She  jerked her chin up and turned away from him and suddenly she heard her own name called--called in an unmistakable Charleston voice that
rang out above the hubbub of other names.

"Mrs. Charles Hamilton--one hundred and fifty dollars--in gold."

A  sudden  hush  fell on the crowd both at the mention of the sum and at the name. Scarlett was so startled she could not even move. She remained
sitting  with  her  chin  in  her  hands, her eyes wide with astonishment. Everybody turned to look at her. She saw the doctor lean down from the
platform  and  whisper  something to Rhett Butler. Probably telling him she was in mourning and it was impossible for her to appear on the floor.
She saw Rhett's shoulders shrug lazily.

"Another one of our belles, perhaps?" questioned the doctor.

"No," said Rhett clearly, his eyes sweeping the crowd carelessly. "Mrs. Hamilton."

"I tell you it is impossible," said the doctor testily. "Mrs. Hamilton will not--"

Scarlett heard a voice which, at first, she did not recognize as her own.

"Yes, I will!"

She  leaped to her feet, her heart hammering so wildly she feared she could not stand, hammering with the thrill of being the center of attention
again, of being the most highly desired girl present and oh, best of all, at the prospect of dancing again.

"Oh,  I don't care! I don't care what they say!" she whispered, as a sweet madness swept over her. She tossed her head and sped out of the booth,
tapping her heels like castanets, snapping open her black silk fan to its widest.

For a fleeting instant she saw Melanie's incredulous face, the look on the chaperons' faces, the petulant girls, the enthusiastic approval of the
soldiers.

Then she was on the floor and Rhett Butler was advancing toward her through the aisle of the crowd, that nasty mocking smile on his face. But she
didn't care--didn't care if he were Abe Lincoln himself! She was going to dance again. She was going to lead the reel. She swept him a low curtsy
and  a  dazzling  smile  and  he  bowed, one hand on his frilled bosom. Levi, horrified, was quick to cover the situation and bawled: "Choose yo'
padners fo' de Ferginny reel!"

And the orchestra crashed into that best of all reel tunes, "Dixie."



"How dare you make me so conspicuous, Captain Butler?"

"But, my dear Mrs. Hamilton, you so obviously wanted to be conspicuous!"

"How could you call my name out in front of everybody?"

"You could have refused."

"But--I owe it to the Cause--I--I couldn't think of myself when you were offering so much in gold. Stop laughing, everyone is looking at us."

"They  will look at us anyway. Don't try to palm off that twaddle about the Cause to me. You wanted to dance and I gave you the opportunity. This
march is the last figure of the reel, isn't it?"

"Yes--really, I must stop and sit down now."

"Why? Have I stepped on your feet?"

"No--but they'll talk about me."

"Do you really care--down in your heart?"

"Well--"

"You aren't committing any crime, are you? Why not dance the waltz with me?"

"But if Mother ever--"

"Still tied to mamma's apronstrings."

"Oh, you have the nastiest way of making virtues sound so stupid."

"But virtues are stupid. Do you care if people talk?"

"No--but--well, let's don't talk about it. Thank goodness the waltz is beginning. Reels always leave me breathless."

"Don't dodge my questions. Has what other women said ever mattered to you?"

"Oh, if you're going to pin me down--no! But a girl is supposed to mind. Tonight, though, I don't care."

"Bravo! Now you are beginning to think for yourself instead of letting others think for you. That's the beginning of wisdom."

"Oh, but--"

"When  you've  been talked about as much as I have, you'll realize how little it matters. Just think, there's not a home in Charleston where I am
received. Not even my contribution to our just and holy Cause lifts the ban."

"How dreadful!"

"Oh, not at all. Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is."

"You do talk scandalous!"

"Scandalously and truly. Always providing you have enough courage--or money--you can do without a reputation."

"Money can't buy everything."

"Someone must have told you that. You'd never think of such a platitude all by yourself. What can't it buy?"

"Oh, well, I don't know--not happiness or love, anyway."

"Generally it can. And when it can't, it can buy some of the most remarkable substitutes."

"And have you so much money, Captain Butler?"

"What  an  ill-bred  question,  Mrs. Hamilton. I'm surprised. But, yes. For a young man cut off without a shilling in early youth, I've done very
well. And I'm sure I'll clean up a million on the blockade."

"Oh, no!"

"Oh, yes! What most people don't seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the
upbuilding of one."

"And what does all that mean?"

"Your  family  and my family and everyone here tonight made their money out of changing a wilderness into a civilization. That's empire building.
There's good money in empire building. But, there's more in empire wrecking."

"What empire are you talking about?"

"This empire we're living in--the South--the Confederacy--the Cotton Kingdom--it's breaking up right under our feet. Only most fools won't see it
and take advantage of the situation created by the collapse. I'm making my fortune out of the wreckage."

"Then you really think we're going to get licked?"

"Yes. Why be an ostrich?"

"Oh, dear, it bores me to talk about such like. Don't you ever say pretty things, Captain Butler?"

"Would it please you if I said your eyes were twin goldfish bowls filled to the brim with the clearest green water and that when the fish swim to
the top, as they are doing now, you are devilishly charming?"

"Oh, I don't like that. . . . Isn't the music gorgeous? Oh, I could waltz forever! I didn't know I had missed it so!"

"You are the most beautiful dancer I've ever held in my arms."

"Captain Butler, you must not hold me so tightly. Everybody is looking."

"If no one were looking, would you care?"

"Captain Butler, you forget yourself."

"Not for a minute. How could I, with you in my arms? . . . What is that tune? Isn't it new?"

"Yes. Isn't it divine? It's something we captured from the Yankees."

"What's the name of it?"

"'When This Cruel War Is Over.'"

"What are the words? Sing them to me."


"Dearest one, do you remember When we last did meet? When you told me how you loved me, Kneeling at my feet? Oh, how proud you stood before me In
your  suit  of gray, When you vowed from me and country Ne'er to go astray. Weeping sad and lonely, Sighs and tears how vain! When this cruel war
is over Pray that we meet again!"


"Of  course, it was 'suit of blue' but we changed it to 'gray.' . . . Oh, you waltz so well, Captain Butler. Most big men don't, you know. And to
think it will be years and years before I'll dance again."

"It will only be a few minutes. I'm going to bid you in for the next reel--and the next and the next."

"Oh, no, I couldn't! You mustn't! My reputation will be ruined."

"It's  in  shreds already, so what does another dance matter? Maybe I'll give the other boys a chance after I've had five or six, but I must have
the last one."

"Oh,  all right. I know I'm crazy but I don't care. I don't care a bit what anybody says. I'm so tired of sitting at home. I'm going to dance and
dance--"

"And not wear black? I loathe funeral crepe."

"Oh, I couldn't take off mourning--Captain Butler, you must not hold me so tightly. I'll be mad at you if you do."

"And you look gorgeous when you are mad. I'll squeeze you again--there--just to see if you will really get mad. You have no idea how charming you
were that day at Twelve Oaks when you were mad and throwing things."

"Oh, please--won't you forget that?"

"No, it is one of my most priceless memories--a delicately nurtured Southern belle with her Irish up-- You are very Irish, you know."

"Oh,  dear,  there's  the end of the music and there's Aunt Pittypat coming out of the back room. I know Mrs. Merriwether must have told her. Oh,
for goodness' sakes, let's walk over and look out the window. I don't want her to catch me now. Her eyes are as big as saucers."



CHAPTER X


Over the waffles next morning, Pittypat was lachrymose, Melanie was silent and Scarlett defiant.

"I don't care if they do talk. I'll bet I made more money for the hospital than any girl there--more than all the messy old stuff we sold, too."

"Oh,  dear,  what  does  the money matter?" wailed Pittypat, wringing her hands. "I just couldn't believe my eyes, and poor Charlie hardly dead a
year. . . . And that awful Captain Butler, making you so conspicuous, and he's a terrible, terrible person, Scarlett. Mrs. Whiting's cousin, Mrs.
Coleman,  whose  husband  came from Charleston, told me about him. He's the black sheep of a lovely family--oh, how could any of the Butlers ever
turn  out anything like him? He isn't received in Charleston and he has the fastest reputation and there was something about a girl--something so
bad Mrs. Coleman didn't even know what it was--"

"Oh,  I  can't  believe  he's  that  bad,"  said Melly gently. "He seemed a perfect gentleman and when you think how brave he's been, running the
blockade--"

"He  isn't  brave,"  said  Scarlett  perversely,  pouring half a pitcher of syrup over her waffles. "He just does it for money. He told me so. He
doesn't care anything about the Confederacy and he says we're going to get licked. But he dances divinely."

Her audience was speechless with horror.

"I'm  tired of sitting at home and I'm not going to do it any longer. If they all talked about me about last night, then my reputation is already
gone and it won't matter what else they say."

It did not occur to her that the idea was Rhett Butler's. It came so patly and fitted so well with what she was thinking.

"Oh! What will your mother say when she hears? What will she think of me?"

A  cold qualm of guilt assailed Scarlett at the thought of Ellen's consternation, should she ever learn of her daughter's scandalous conduct. But
she  took  heart  at the thought of the twenty-five miles between Atlanta and Tara. Miss Pitty certainly wouldn't tell Ellen. It would put her in
such a bad light as a chaperon. And if Pitty didn't tattle, she was safe.

"I  think--" said Pitty, "yes, I think I'd better write Henry a letter about it--much as I hate it--but he's our only male relative, and make him
go speak reprovingly to Captain Butler--Oh, dear, if Charlie were only alive-- You must never, never speak to that man again, Scarlett."

Melanie  had  been  sitting  quietly, her hands in her lap, her waffles cooling on her plate. She arose and, coming behind Scarlett, put her arms
about her neck.

"Darling,"  she  said,  "don't you get upset. I understand and it was a brave thing you did last night and it's going to help the hospital a lot.
And  if  anybody  dares  say  one  little word about you, I'll tend to them. . . . Aunt Pitty, don't cry. It has been hard on Scarlett, not going
anywhere.  She's  just  a  baby."  Her  fingers played in Scarlett's black hair. "And maybe we'd all be better off if we went out occasionally to
parties.  Maybe we've been very selfish, staying here with our grief. War times aren't like other times. When I think of all the soldiers in town
who are far from home and haven't any friends to call on at night--and the ones in the hospital who are well enough to be out of bed and not well
enough  to  go  back in the army-- Why, we have been selfish. We ought to have three convalescents in our house this minute, like everybody else,
and  some  of the soldiers out to dinner every Sunday. There, Scarlett, don't you fret. People won't talk when they understand. We know you loved
Charlie."

Scarlett  was  far  from fretting and Melanie's soft hands in her hair were irritating. She wanted to jerk her head away and say "Oh, fiddle-dee-
dee!"  for the warming memory was still on her of how the Home Guard and the militia and the soldiers from the hospital had fought for her dances
last night. Of all the people in the world, she didn't want Melly for a defender. She could defend herself, thank you, and if the old cats wanted
to  squall--well, she could get along without the old cats. There were too many nice officers in the world for her to bother about what old women
said.

Pittypat was dabbing at her eyes under Melanie's soothing words when Prissy entered with a bulky letter.

"Fer you. Miss Melly. A lil nigger boy brung it."

"For me?" said Melly, wondering, as she ripped open the envelope.

Scarlett  was  making  headway  with  her  waffles  and  so noticed nothing until she heard a burst of tears from Melly and, looking up, saw Aunt
Pittypat's hand go to her heart.

"Ashley's dead!" screamed Pittypat, throwing her head back and letting her arms go limp.

"Oh, my God!" cried Scarlett, her blood turning to ice water.

"No! No!" cried Melanie. "Quick! Her smelling salts, Scarlett! There, there, honey, do you feel better? Breathe deep. No, it's not Ashley. I'm so
sorry  I  scared you. I was crying because I'm so happy," and suddenly she opened her clenched palm and pressed some object that was in it to her
lips. "I'm so happy," and burst into tears again.

Scarlett caught a fleeting glimpse and saw that it was a broad gold ring.

"Read it," said Melly, pointing to the letter on the floor. "Oh, how sweet, how kind, he is!"

Scarlett,  bewildered,  picked  up the single sheet and saw written in a black, bold hand: "The Confederacy may need the lifeblood of its men but
not yet does it demand the heart's blood of its women. Accept, dear Madam, this token of my reverence for your courage and do not think that your
sacrifice has been in vain, for this ring has been redeemed at ten times its value. Captain Rhett Butler."

Melanie slipped the ring on her finger and looked at it lovingly.

"I  told  you  he  was  a  gentleman,  didn't I?" she said turning to Pittypat, her smile bright through the teardrops on her face. "No one but a
gentleman of refinement and thoughtfulness would ever have thought how it broke my heart to-- I'll send my gold chain instead. Aunt Pittypat, you
must write him a note and invite him to Sunday dinner so I can thank him."

In the excitement, neither of the others seemed to have thought that Captain Butler had not returned Scarlett's ring, too. But she thought of it,
annoyed.  And  she  knew  it had not been Captain Butler's refinement that had prompted so gallant a gesture. It was that he intended to be asked
into Pittypat's house and knew unerringly how to get the invitation.



"I  was  greatly  disturbed  to hear of your recent conduct," ran Ellen's letter and Scarlett, who was reading it at the table, scowled. Bad news
certainly  traveled  swiftly.  She  had  often  heard  in Charleston and Savannah that Atlanta people gossiped more and meddled in other people's
business  more  than any other people in the South, and now she believed it. The bazaar had taken place Monday night and today was only Thursday.
Which  of the old cats had taken it upon herself to write Ellen? For a moment she suspected Pittypat but immediately abandoned that thought. Poor
Pittypat had been quaking in her number-three shoes for fear of being blamed for Scarlett's forward conduct and would be the last to notify Ellen
of her own inadequate chaperonage. Probably it was Mrs. Merriwether.

"It  is  difficult  for  me  to  believe  that  you could so forget yourself and your rearing. I will pass over the impropriety of your appearing
publicly  while in mourning, realizing your warm desire to be of assistance to the hospital. But to dance, and with such a man as Captain Butler!
I  have  heard  much of him (as who has not?) and Pauline wrote me only last week that he is a man of bad repute and not even received by his own
family  in  Charleston,  except  of course by his heartbroken mother. He is a thoroughly bad character who would take advantage of your youth and
innocence to make you conspicuous and publicly disgrace you and your family. How could Miss Pittypat have so neglected her duty to you?"

Scarlett looked across the table at her aunt. The old lady had recognized Ellen's handwriting and her fat little mouth was pursed in a frightened
way, like a baby who fears a scolding and hopes to ward it off by tears.

"I am heartbroken to think that you could so soon forget your rearing. I have thought of calling you home immediately but will leave that to your
father's  discretion. He will be in Atlanta Friday to speak with Captain Butler and to escort you home. I fear he will be severe with you despite
my  pleadings.  I hope and pray it was only youth and thoughtlessness that prompted such forward conduct. No one can wish to serve our Cause more
than I, and I wish my daughters to feel the same way, but to disgrace--"

There  was  more  in the same vein but Scarlett did not finish it. For once, she was thoroughly frightened. She did not feel reckless and defiant
now.  She  felt  as young and guilty as when she was ten and had thrown a buttered biscuit at Suellen at the table. To think of her gentle mother
reproving  her  so  harshly  and  her father coming to town to talk to Captain Butler. The real seriousness of the matter grew on her. Gerald was
going to be severe. This was one time when she knew she couldn't wiggle out of her punishment by sitting on his knee and being sweet and pert.

"Not--not bad news?" quavered Pittypat.

"Pa is coming tomorrow and he's going to land on me like a duck on a June bug," answered Scarlett dolorously.

"Prissy, find my salts," fluttered Pittypat, pushing back her chair from her half-eaten meal. "I--I feel faint."

"Dey's  in  yo'  skirt  pocket," said Prissy, who had been hovering behind Scarlett, enjoying the sensational drama. Mist' Gerald in a temper was
always exciting, providing his temper was not directed at her kinky head. Pitty fumbled at her skirt and held the vial to her nose.

"You  all  must stand by me and not leave me alone with him for one minute," cried Scarlett. "He's so fond of you both, and if you are with me he
can't fuss at me."

"I  couldn't," said Pittypat weakly, rising to her feet. "I--I feel ill. I must go lie down. I shall lie down all day tomorrow. You must give him
my excuses."

"Coward!" thought Scarlett, glowering at her.

Melly  rallied to the defense, though white and frightened at the prospect of facing the fire-eating Mr. O'Hara. "I'll--I'll help you explain how
you did it for the hospital. Surely he'll understand."

"No, he won't," said Scarlett. "And oh, I shall die if I have to go back to Tara in disgrace, like Mother threatens!"

"Oh,  you can't go home," cried Pittypat, bursting into tears. "If you did I should be forced--yes, forced to ask Henry to come live with us, and
you know I just couldn't live with Henry. I'm so nervous with just Melly in the house at night, with so many strange men in town. You're so brave
I don't mind being here without a man!"

"Oh,  he  couldn't  take  you  to  Tara!"  said Melly, looking as if she too would cry in a moment. "This is your home now. What would we ever do
without you?"

"You'd  be  glad  to  do  without  me if you knew what I really think of you," thought Scarlett sourly, wishing there were some other person than
Melanie to help ward off Gerald's wrath. It was sickening to be defended by someone you disliked so much.

"Perhaps we should recall our invitation to Captain Butler--" began Pittypat.

"Oh, we couldn't! It would be the height of rudeness!" cried Melly, distressed.

"Help me to bed. I'm going to be ill," moaned Pittypat. "Oh, Scarlett, how could you have brought this on me?"

Pittypat  was  ill and in her bed when Gerald arrived the next afternoon. She sent many messages of regret to him from behind her closed door and
left  the  two  frightened  girls to preside over the supper table. Gerald was ominously silent although he kissed Scarlett and pinched Melanie's
cheek  approvingly  and called her "Cousin Melly." Scarlett would have infinitely preferred bellowing oaths and accusations. True to her promise,
Melanie  clung  to Scarlett's skirts like a small rustling shadow and Gerald was too much of a gentleman to upbraid his daughter in front of her.
Scarlett  had to admit that Melanie carried off things very well, acting as if she knew nothing was amiss, and she actually succeeded in engaging
Gerald in conversation, once the supper had been served.

"I  want to know all about the County," she said, beaming upon him. "India and Honey are such poor correspondents, and I know you know everything
that goes on down there. Do tell us about Joe Fontaine's wedding."

Gerald warmed to the flattery and said that the wedding had been a quiet affair, "not like you girls had," for Joe had only a few days' furlough.
Sally,  the  little  Munroe  chit,  looked  very pretty. No, he couldn't recall what she wore but he did hear that she didn't have a "second-day"
dress.

"She didn't!" exclaimed the girls, scandalized.

"Sure,  because  she didn't have a second day," Gerald explained and bawled with laughter before recalling that perhaps such remarks were not fit
for female ears. Scarlett's spirits soared at his laugh and she blessed Melanie's tact.

"Back  Joe  went  to  Virginia  the  next day," Gerald added hastily. "There was no visiting about and dancing afterwards. The Tarleton twins are
home."

"We heard that. Have they recovered?"

"They  weren't badly wounded. Stuart had it in the knee and a minie ball went through Brent's shoulder. You had it, too, that they were mentioned
in dispatches for bravery?"

"No! Tell us!"

"Hare  brained--both  of them. I'm believing there's Irish in them," said Gerald complacently. "I forget what they did, but Brent is a lieutenant
now."

Scarlett  felt pleased at hearing of their exploits, pleased in a proprietary manner. Once a man had been her beau, she never lost the conviction
that he belonged to her, and all his good deeds redounded to her credit.

"And I've news that'll be holding the both of you," said Gerald. "They're saying Stu is courting at Twelve Oaks again."

"Honey or India?" questioned Melly excitedly, while Scarlett stared almost indignantly.

"Oh, Miss India, to be sure. Didn't she have him fast till this baggage of mine winked at him?"

"Oh," said Melly, somewhat embarrassed at Gerald's outspokenness.

"And more than that, young Brent has taken to hanging about Tara. Now!"

Scarlett  could not speak. The defection of her beaux was almost insulting. Especially when she recalled how wildly both the twins had acted when
she  told  them  she  was going to marry Charles. Stuart had even threatened to shoot Charles, or Scarlett, or himself, or all three. It had been
most exciting.

"Suellen?" questioned Melly, breaking into a pleased smile. "But I thought Mr. Kennedy--"

"Oh,  him?"  said  Gerald.  "Frank Kennedy still pussyfoots about, afraid of his shadow, and I'll be asking him his intentions soon if he doesn't
speak up. No, 'tis me baby."

"Carreen?"

"She's nothing but a child!" said Scarlett sharply, finding her tongue.

"She's little more than a year younger than you were, Miss, when you were married," retorted Gerald. "Is it you're grudging your old beau to your
sister?"

Melly  blushed,  unaccustomed  to such frankness, and signaled Peter to bring in the sweet potato pie. Frantically she cast about in her mind for
some  other  topic of conversation which would not be so personal but which would divert Mr. O'Hara from the purpose of his trip. She could think
of  nothing  but,  once  started,  Gerald needed no stimulus other than an audience. He talked on about the thievery of the commissary department
which  every month increased its demands, the knavish stupidity of Jefferson Davis and the blackguardery of the Irish who were being enticed into
the Yankee army by bounty money.

When  the  wine  was  on  the table and the two girls rose to leave him, Gerald cocked a severe eye at his daughter from under frowning brows and
commanded her presence alone for a few minutes. Scarlett cast a despairing glance at Melly, who twisted her handkerchief helplessly and went out,
softly pulling the sliding doors together.

"How  now,  Missy!" bawled Gerald, pouring himself a glass of port. "'Tis a fine way to act! Is it another husband you're trying to catch and you
so fresh a widow?"

"Not so loud, Pa, the servants--"

"They know already, to be sure, and everybody knows of our disgrace. And your poor mother taking to her bed with it and me not able to hold up me
head.  'Tis  shameful.  No,  Puss, you need not think to get around me with tears this time," he said hastily and with some panic in his voice as
Scarlett's  lids  began  to  bat and her mouth to screw up. "I know you. You'd be flirting at the wake of your husband. Don't cry. There, I'll be
saying  no more tonight, for I'm going to see this fine Captain Butler who makes so light of me daughter's reputation. But in the morning-- There
now,  don't  cry. Twill do you no good at all, at all. 'Tis firm that I am and back to Tara you'll be going tomorrow before you're disgracing the
lot  of us again. Don't cry, pet. Look what I've brought you! Isn't that a pretty present? See, look! How could you be putting so much trouble on
me, bringing me all the way up here when 'tis a busy man I am? Don't cry!"



Melanie  and  Pittypat had gone to sleep hours before, but Scarlett lay awake in the warm darkness, her heart heavy and frightened in her breast.
To  leave Atlanta when life had just begun again and go home and face Ellen! She would rather die than face her mother. She wished she were dead,
this  very  minute, then everyone would be sorry they had been so hateful. She turned and tossed on the hot pillow until a noise far up the quiet
street reached her ears. It was an oddly familiar noise, blurred and indistinct though it was. She slipped out of bed and went to the window. The
street with its over-arching trees was softly, deeply black under a dim star-studded sky. The noise came closer, the sound of wheels, the plod of
a  horse's  hooves  and voices. And suddenly she grinned for, as a voice thick with brogue and whisky came to her, raised in "Peg in a Low-backed
Car," she knew. This might not be Jonesboro on Court Day, but Gerald was coming home in the same condition.

She  saw  the dark bulk of a buggy stop in front of the house and indistinct figures alight. Someone was with him. Two figures paused at the gate
and she heard the click of the latch and Gerald's voice came plain,

"Now I'll be giving you the 'Lament for Robert Emmet.' 'Tis a song you should be knowing, me lad. I'll teach it to you."

"I'd like to learn it," replied his companion, a hint of buried laughter in his flat drawling voice. "But not now, Mr. O'Hara."

"Oh,  my  God,  it's that hateful Butler man!" thought Scarlett, at first annoyed. Then she took heart. At least they hadn't shot each other. And
they must be on amicable terms to be coming home together at this hour and in this condition.

"Sing it I will and listen you will or I'll be shooting you for the Orangeman you are."

"Not Orangeman--Charlestonian."

"'Tis no better. 'Tis worse. I have two sister-in-laws in Charleston and I know."

"Is  he  going to tell the whole neighborhood?" thought Scarlett panic-stricken, reaching for her wrapper. But what could she do? She couldn't go
downstairs at this hour of the night and drag her father in from the street.

With  no further warning, Gerald, who was hanging on the gate, threw back his head and began the "Lament," in a roaring bass. Scarlett rested her
elbows  on the window sill and listened, grinning unwillingly. It would be a beautiful song, if only her father could carry a tune. It was one of
her favorite songs and, for a moment, she followed the fine melancholy of those verses beginning:


"She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps And lovers are round her sighing."


The  song  went  on  and she heard stirrings in Pittypat's and Melly's rooms. Poor things, they'd certainly be upset. They were not used to full-
blooded  males  like  Gerald.  When  the  song  had finished, two forms merged into one, came up the walk and mounted the steps. A discreet knock
sounded at the door.

"I  suppose  I must go down," thought Scarlett. "After all he's my father and poor Pitty would die before she'd go." Besides, she didn't want the
servants to see Gerald in his present condition. And if Peter tried to put him to bed, he might get unruly. Pork was the only one who knew how to
handle him.

She pinned the wrapper close about her throat, lit her bedside candle and hurried down the dark stairs into the front hall. Setting the candle on
the stand, she unlocked the door and in the wavering light she saw Rhett Butler, not a ruffle disarranged, supporting her small, thickset father.
The "Lament" had evidently been Gerald's swan song for he was frankly hanging onto his companion's arm. His hat was gone, his crisp long hair was
tumbled in a white mane, his cravat was under one ear, and there were liquor stains down his shirt bosom.

"Your  father,  I  believe?"  said  Captain  Butler,  his eyes amused in his swarthy face. He took in her dishabille in one glance that seemed to
penetrate through her wrapper.

"Bring  him  in,"  she  said shortly, embarrassed at her attire, infuriated at Gerald for putting her in a position where this man could laugh at
her.

Rhett propelled Gerald forward. "Shall I help you take him upstairs? You cannot manage him. He's quite heavy."

Her  mouth fell open with horror at the audacity of his proposal. Just imagine what Pittypat and Melly cowering in their beds would think, should
Captain Butler come upstairs!

"Mother of God, no! In here, in the parlor on that settee."

"The suttee, did you say?"

"I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head. Here. Now lay him down."

"Shall I take off his boots?"

"No. He's slept in them before."

She could have bitten off her tongue for that slip, for he laughed softly as he crossed Gerald's legs.

"Please go, now."

He walked out into the dim hall and picked up the hat he had dropped on the doorsill.

"I will be seeing you Sunday at dinner," he said and went out, closing the door noiselessly behind him.

Scarlett  arose  at  five-thirty,  before the servants had come in from the back yard to start breakfast, and slipped down the steps to the quiet
lower  floor.  Gerald was awake, sitting on the sofa, his hands gripping his bullet head as if he wished to crush it between his palms. He looked
up furtively as she entered. The pain of moving his eyes was too excruciating to be borne and he groaned.

"Wurra the day!"

"It's a fine way you've acted, Pa," she began in a furious whisper. "Coming home at such an hour and waking all the neighbors with your singing."

"I sang?"

"Sang! You woke the echoes singing the 'Lament.'"

"'Tis nothing I'm remembering."

"The neighbors will remember it till their dying day and so will Miss Pittypat and Melanie."

"Mother of Sorrows," moaned Gerald, moving a thickly furred tongue around parched lips. "'Tis little I'm remembering after the game started."

"Game?"

"That laddybuck Butler bragged that he was the best poker player in--"

"How much did you lose?"

"Why, I won, naturally. A drink or two helps me game."

"Look in your wallet."

As if every movement was agony, Gerald removed his wallet from his coat and opened it. It was empty and he looked at it in forlorn bewilderment.

"Five hundred dollars," he said. "And 'twas to buy things from the blockaders for Mrs. O'Hara, and now not even fare left to Tara."

As she looked indignantly at the empty purse, an idea took form in Scarlett's mind and grew swiftly.

"I'll not be holding up my head in this town," she began. "You've disgraced us all."

"Hold your tongue, Puss. Can you not see me head is bursting?"

"Coming home drunk with a man like Captain Butler, and singing at the top of your lungs for everyone to hear and losing all that money."

"The man is too clever with cards to be a gentleman. He--"

"What will Mother say when she hears?"

He looked up in sudden anguished apprehension. "You wouldn't be telling your mother a word and upsetting her, now would you?"

Scarlett said nothing but pursed her lips.

"Think now how 'twould hurt her and her so gentle."

"And  to think, Pa, that you said only last night I had disgraced the family! Me, with my poor little dance to make money for the soldiers. Oh, I
could cry."

"Well, don't," pleaded Gerald. "'Twould be more than me poor head could stand and sure 'tis bursting now."

"And you said that I--"

"Now  Puss, now Puss, don't you be hurt at what your poor old father said and him not meaning a thing and not understanding a thing! Sure, you're
a fine well-meaning girl, I'm sure."

"And wanting to take me home in disgrace."

"Ah,  darling, I wouldn't be doing that. 'Twas to tease you. You won't be mentioning the money to your mother and her in a flutter about expenses
already?"

"No,"  said  Scarlett  frankly,  "I  won't,  if you'll let me stay here and if you'll tell Mother that 'twas nothing but a lot of gossip from old
cats."

Gerald looked mournfully at his daughter.

"'Tis blackmail, no less."

"And last night was a scandal, no less."

"Well," he began wheedlingly, "we'll be forgetting all that. And do you think a fine pretty lady like Miss Pittypat would be having any brandy in
the house? The hair of the dog--"

Scarlett  turned and tiptoed through the silent hall into the dining room to get the brandy bottle that she and Melly privately called the "swoon
bottle"  because  Pittypat  always took a sip from it when her fluttering heart made her faint--or seem to faint. Triumph was written on her face
and  no  trace of shame for her unfilial treatment of Gerald. Now Ellen would be soothed with lies if any other busybody wrote her. Now she could
stay  in  Atlanta. Now she could do almost as she pleased, Pittypat being the weak vessel that she was. She unlocked the cellaret and stood for a
moment with the bottle and glass pressed to her bosom.

She  saw  a  long  vista  of  picnics  by the bubbling waters of Peachtree Creek and barbecues at Stone Mountain, receptions and balls, afternoon
danceables, buggy rides and Sunday-night buffet suppers. She would be there, right in the heart of things, right in the center of a crowd of men.
And  men  fell  in  love so easily, after you did little things for them at the hospital. She wouldn't mind the hospital so much now. Men were so
easily stirred when they had been ill. They fell into a clever girl's hand just like the ripe peaches at Tara when the trees were gently shaken.

She  went  back toward her father with the reviving liquor, thanking Heaven that the famous O'Hara head had not been able to survive last night's
bout and wondering suddenly if Rhett Butler had had anything to do with that.



CHAPTER XI


On  an  afternoon  of  the  following week, Scarlett came home from the hospital weary and indignant. She was tired from standing on her feet all
morning  and  irritable  because  Mrs. Merriwether had scolded her sharply for sitting on a soldier's bed while she dressed his wounded arm. Aunt
Pitty  and  Melanie,  bonneted in their best, were on the porch with Wade and Prissy, ready for their weekly round of calls. Scarlett asked to be
excused from accompanying them and went upstairs to her room.

When the last sound of carriage wheels had died away and she knew the family was safely out of sight, she slipped quietly into Melanie's room and
turned  the  key  in  the  lock.  It was a prim, virginal little room and it lay still and warm in the slanting rays of the four-o'clock sun. The
floors  were  glistening and bare except for a few bright rag rugs, and the white walls unornamented save for one corner which Melanie had fitted
up as a shrine.

Here,  under  a  draped Confederate flag, hung the gold-hilted saber that Melanie's father had carried in the Mexican War, the same saber Charles
had  worn  away  to  war.  Charles' sash and pistol belt hung there too, with his revolver in the holster. Between the saber and the pistol was a
daguerreotype  of Charles himself, very stiff and proud in his gray uniform, his great brown eyes shining out of the frame and a shy smile on his
lips.

Scarlett  did  not  even glance at the picture but went unhesitatingly across the room to the square rosewood writing box that stood on the table
beside the narrow bed. From it she took a pack of letters tied together with a blue ribbon, addressed in Ashley's hand to Melanie. On the top was
the letter which had come that morning and this one she opened.

When  Scarlett  first  began  secretly reading these letters, she had been so stricken of conscience and so fearful of discovery she could hardly
open the envelopes for trembling. Now, her never-too-scrupulous sense of honor was dulled by repetition of the offense and even fear of discovery
had  subsided. Occasionally, she thought with a sinking heart, "What would Mother say if she knew?" She knew Ellen would rather see her dead than
know  her  guilty  of  such  dishonor.  This  had worried Scarlett at first, for she still wanted to be like her mother in every respect. But the
temptation  to  read  the  letters  was  too  great  and she put the thought of Ellen out of her mind. She had become adept at putting unpleasant
thoughts  out  of  her  mind  these  days.  She  had  learned  to say, "I won't think of this or that bothersome thought now. I'll think about it
tomorrow."  Generally  when  tomorrow  came,  the  thought  either  did  not  occur  at  all or it was so attenuated by the delay it was not very
troublesome. So the matter of Ashley's letters did not lie very heavily on her conscience.

Melanie  was  always generous with the letters, reading parts of them aloud to Aunt Pitty and Scarlett. But it was the part she did not read that
tormented  Scarlett,  that  drove  her  to surreptitious reading of her sister-in-law's mail. She had to know if Ashley had come to love his wife
since  marrying  her.  She had to know if he even pretended to love her. Did he address tender endearments to her? What sentiments did he express
and with what warmth?

She carefully smoothed out the letter.

Ashley's  small  even  writing  leaped  up at her as she read, "My dear wife," and she breathed in relief. He wasn't calling Melanie "Darling" or
"Sweetheart" yet.

"My  Dear wife: You write me saying you are alarmed lest I be concealing my real thoughts from you and you ask me what is occupying my mind these
days--"

"Mother  of  God!"  thought  Scarlett,  in  a panic of guilt. "'Concealing his real thoughts.' Can Melly have read his mind? Or my mind? Does she
suspect that he and I--"

Her hands trembled with fright as she held the letter closer, but as she read the next paragraph she relaxed.

"Dear  Wife,  if  I  have  concealed aught from you it is because I did not wish to lay a burden on your shoulders, to add to your worries for my
physical safety with those of my mental turmoil. But I can keep nothing from you, for you know me too well. Do not be alarmed. I have no wound. I
have not been ill. I have enough to eat and occasionally a bed to sleep in. A soldier can ask for no more. But, Melanie, heavy thoughts lie on my
heart and I will open my heart to you.

"These  summer  nights  I lie awake, long after the camp is sleeping, and I look up at the stars and, over and over, I wonder, 'Why are you here,
Ashley Wilkes? What are you fighting for?'

"Not  for  honor and glory, certainly. War is a dirty business and I do not like dirt. I am not a soldier and I have no desire to seek the bubble
reputation  even  in  the cannon's mouth. Yet, here I am at the wars--whom God never intended to be other than a studious country gentleman. For,
Melanie, bugles do not stir my blood nor drums entice my feet and I see too clearly that we have been betrayed, betrayed by our arrogant Southern
selves,  believing  that one of us could whip a dozen Yankees, believing that King Cotton could rule the world. Betrayed, too, by words and catch
phrases,  prejudices  and  hatreds coming from the mouths of those highly placed, those men whom we respected and revered--'King Cotton, Slavery,
States' Rights, Damn Yankees.'

"And  so  when  I  lie  on  my blanket and look up at the stars and say 'What are you fighting for?' I think of States' Rights and cotton and the
darkies and the Yankees whom we have been bred to hate, and I know that none of these is the reason why I am fighting. Instead, I see Twelve Oaks
and  remember  how  the  moonlight slants across the white columns, and the unearthly way the magnolias look, opening under the moon, and how the
climbing roses make the side porch shady even at the hottest noon. And I see Mother, sewing there, as she did when I was a little boy. And I hear
the  darkies coming home across the fields at dusk, tired and singing and ready for supper, and the sound of the windlass as the bucket goes down
into  the cool well. And there's the long view down the road to the river, across the cotton fields, and the mist rising from the bottom lands in
the  twilight.  And  that  is  why I'm here who have no love of death or misery or glory and no hatred for anyone. Perhaps that is what is called
patriotism,  love  of home and country. But Melanie, it goes deeper than that. For, Melanie, these things I have named are but the symbols of the
thing  for which I risk my life, symbols of the kind of life I love. For I am fighting for the old days, the old ways I love so much but which, I
fear, are now gone forever, no matter how the die may fall. For, win or lose, we lose just the same.

"If  we  win this war and have the Cotton Kingdom of our dreams, we still have lost, for we will become a different people and the old quiet ways
will  go. The world will be at our doors clamoring for cotton and we can command our own price. Then, I fear, we will become like the Yankees, at
whose money-making activities, acquisitiveness and commercialism we now sneer. And if we lose, Melanie, if we lose!

"I  am  not  afraid of danger or capture or wounds or even death, if death must come, but I do fear that once this war is over, we will never get
back to the old times. And I belong in those old times. I do not belong in this mad present of killing and I fear I will not fit into any future,
try  though  I  may.  Nor  will  you, my dear, for you and I are of the same blood. I do not know what the future will bring, but it cannot be as
beautiful or as satisfying as the past.

"I  lie and look at the boys sleeping near me and I wonder if the twins or Alex or Cade think these same thoughts. I wonder if they know they are
fighting  for  a Cause that was lost the minute the first shot was fired, for our Cause is really our own way of living and that is gone already.
But I do not think they think these things and they are lucky.

"I  had not thought of this for us when I asked you to marry me. I had thought of life going on at Twelve Oaks as it had always done, peacefully,
easily, unchanging. We are alike, Melanie, loving the same quiet things, and I saw before us a long stretch of uneventful years in which to read,
hear  music  and  dream.  But  not this! Never this! That this could happen to us all, this wrecking of old ways, this bloody slaughter and hate!
Melanie,  nothing  is  worth it--States' Rights, nor slaves, nor cotton. Nothing is worth what is happening to us now and what may happen, for if
the Yankees whip us the future will be one of incredible horror. And, my dear, they may yet whip us.

"I  should  not  write those words. I should not even think them. But you have asked me what was in my heart, and the fear of defeat is there. Do
you remember at the barbecue, the day our engagement was announced, that a man named Butler, a Charlestonian by his accent, nearly caused a fight
by  his  remarks  about  the  ignorance  of Southerners? Do you recall how the twins wanted to shoot him because he said we had few foundries and
factories,  mills  and  ships,  arsenals and machine shops? Do you recall how he said the Yankee fleet could bottle us up so tightly we could not
ship  out  our  cotton?  He  was right. We are fighting the Yankees' new rifles with Revolutionary War muskets, and soon the blockade will be too
tight  for  even medical supplies to slip in. We should have paid heed to cynics like Butler who knew, instead of statesmen who felt--and talked.
He  said,  in  effect,  that  the  South  had nothing with which to wage war but cotton and arrogance. Our cotton is worthless and what he called
arrogance is all that is left. But I call that arrogance matchless courage. If--"

But  Scarlett  carefully  folded up the letter without finishing it and thrust it back into the envelope, too bored to read further. Besides, the
tone of the letter vaguely depressed her with its foolish talk of defeat. After all, she wasn't reading Melanie's mail to learn Ashley's puzzling
and uninteresting ideas. She had had to listen to enough of them when he sat on the porch at Tara in days gone by.

All  she wanted to know was whether he wrote impassioned letters to his wife. So far he had not. She had read every letter in the writing box and
there was nothing in any one of them that a brother might not have written to a sister. They were affectionate, humorous, discursive, but not the
letters  of  a  lover. Scarlett had received too many ardent love letters herself not to recognize the authentic note of passion when she saw it.
And  that  note  was missing. As always after her secret readings, a feeling of smug satisfaction enveloped her, for she felt certain that Ashley
still  loved  her. And always she wondered sneeringly why Melanie did not realize that Ashley only loved her as a friend. Melanie evidently found
nothing lacking in her husband's messages but Melanie had had no other man's love letters with which to compare Ashley's."

"He  writes  such crazy letters," Scarlett thought. "If ever any husband of mine wrote me such twaddle-twaddle, he'd certainly hear from me! Why,
even Charlie wrote better letters than these."

She  flipped  back  the  edges  of the letters, looking at the dates, remembering their contents. In them there were no fine descriptive pages of
bivouacs  and  charges  such  as Darcy Meade wrote his parents or poor Dallas McLure had written his old-maid sisters, Misses Faith and Hope. The
Meades and McLures proudly read these letters all over the neighborhood, and Scarlett had frequently felt a secret shame that Melanie had no such
letters from Ashley to read aloud at sewing circles.

It  was  as  though  when  writing Melanie, Ashley tried to ignore the war altogether, and sought to draw about the two of them a magic circle of
timelessness,  shutting out everything that had happened since Fort Sumter was the news of the day. It was almost as if he were trying to believe
there wasn't any war. He wrote of books which he and Melanie had read and songs they had sung, of old friends they knew and places he had visited
on  his Grand Tour. Through the letters ran a wistful yearning to be back home at Twelve Oaks, and for pages he wrote of the hunting and the long
rides through the still forest paths under frosty autumn stars, the barbecues, the fish fries, the quiet of moonlight nights and the serene charm
of the old house.

She  thought of his words in the letter she had just read: "Not this! Never this!" and they seemed to cry of a tormented soul facing something he
could  not  face, yet must face. It puzzled her for, if he was not afraid of wounds and death, what was it he feared? Unanalytical, she struggled
with the complex thought.

"The  war  disturbs  him and he--he doesn't like things that disturb him. . . . Me, for instance. . . . He loved me but he was afraid to marry me
because--for  fear I'd upset his way of thinking and living. No, it wasn't exactly that he was afraid. Ashley isn't a coward. He couldn't be when
he's  been  mentioned  in  dispatches and when Colonel Sloan wrote that letter to Melly all about his gallant conduct in leading the charge. Once
he's  made  up  his mind to do something, no one could be braver or more determined but--He lives inside his head instead of outside in the world
and he hates to come out into the world and-- Oh, I don't know what it is! If I'd just understood this one thing about him years ago, I know he'd
have married me."

She  stood  for  a  moment holding the letters to her breast, thinking longingly of Ashley. Her emotions toward him had not changed since the day
when she first fell in love with him. They were the same emotions that struck her speechless that day when she was fourteen years old and she had
stood  on  the  porch  of  Tara  and  seen  Ashley ride up smiling, his hair shining silver in the morning sun. Her love was still a young girl's
adoration  for  a man she could not understand, a man who possessed all the qualities she did not own but which she admired. He was still a young
girl's dream of the Perfect Knight and her dream asked no more than acknowledgment of his love, went no further than hopes of a kiss.

After reading the letters, she felt certain he did love her, Scarlett, even though he had married Melanie, and that certainty was almost all that
she  desired.  She was still that young and untouched. Had Charles with his fumbling awkwardness and his embarrassed intimacies tapped any of the
deep  vein  of  passionate  feeling  within  her, her dreams of Ashley would not be ending with a kiss. But those few moonlight nights alone with
Charles  had  not  touched  her  emotions or ripened her to maturity. Charles had awakened no idea of what passion might be or tenderness or true
intimacy of body or spirit.

All  that  passion  meant  to  her  was  servitude to inexplicable male madness, unshared by females, a painful and embarrassing process that led
inevitably to the still more painful process of childbirth. That marriage should be like this was no surprise to her. Ellen had hinted before the
wedding  that  marriage was something women must bear with dignity and fortitude, and the whispered comments of other matrons since her widowhood
had confirmed this. Scarlett was glad to be done with passion and marriage.

She  was  done  with  marriage but not with love, for her love for Ashley was something different, having nothing to do with passion or marriage,
something  sacred  and  breathtakingly  beautiful, an emotion that grew stealthily through the long days of her enforced silence, feeding on oft-
thumbed memories and hopes.

She  sighed  as  she  carefully  tied  the  ribbon about the packet, wondering for the thousandth time just what it was in Ashley that eluded her
understanding.  She  tried  to think the matter to some satisfactory conclusion but, as always, the conclusion evaded her uncomplex mind. She put
the  letters  back  in the lap secretary and closed the lid. Then she frowned, for her mind went back to the last part of the letter she had just
read,  to  his  mention  of  Captain  Butler. How strange that Ashley should be impressed by something that scamp had said a year ago. Undeniably
Captain  Butler  was  a scamp, for all that he danced divinely. No one but a scamp would say the things about the Confederacy that he had said at
the bazaar.

She  crossed  the  room  to  the  mirror  and  patted her smooth hair approvingly. Her spirits rose, as always at the sight of her white skin and
slanting  green  eyes,  and  she  smiled  to  bring  out  her  dimples. Then she dismissed Captain Butler from her mind as she happily viewed her
reflection,  remembering how Ashley had always liked her dimples. No pang of conscience at loving another woman's husband or reading that woman's
mail disturbed her pleasure in her youth and charm and her renewed assurance of Ashley's love.

She unlocked the door and went down the dim winding stair with a light heart. Halfway down she began singing "When This Cruel War Is Over."



CHAPTER XII


The  war  went on, successfully for the most part, but people had stopped saying "One more victory and the war is over," just as they had stopped
saying  the  Yankees were cowards. It was obvious to all now that the Yankees were far from cowardly and that it would take more than one victory
to  conquer  them. However, there were the Confederate victories in Tennessee scored by General Morgan and General Forrest and the triumph at the
Second  Battle of Bull Run hung up like visible Yankee scalps to gloat over. But there was a heavy price on these scalps. The hospitals and homes
of  Atlanta  were overflowing with the sick and wounded, and more and more women were appearing in black. The monotonous rows of soldiers' graves
at Oakland Cemetery stretched longer every day.

Confederate money had dropped alarmingly and the price of food and clothing had risen accordingly. The commissary was laying such heavy levies on
foodstuffs  that the tables of Atlanta were beginning to suffer. White flour was scarce and so expensive that corn bread was universal instead of
biscuits,  rolls  and  waffles. The butcher shops carried almost no beef and very little mutton, and that mutton cost so much only the rich could
afford it. However there was still plenty of hog meat, as well as chickens and vegetables.

The  Yankee  blockade  about  the  Confederate  ports  had tightened, and luxuries such as tea, coffee, silks, whalebone stays, colognes, fashion
magazines  and  books  were scarce and dear. Even the cheapest cotton goods had skyrocketed in price and ladies were regretfully making their old
dresses  do another season. Looms that had gathered dust for years had been brought down from attics, and there were webs of homespun to be found
in nearly every parlor. Everyone, soldiers, civilians, women, children and negroes, began to wear homespun. Gray, as the color of the Confederate
uniform, practically disappeared and homespun of a butternut shade took its place.

Already  the  hospitals  were  worrying  about the scarcity of quinine, calomel, opium, chloroform and iodine. Linen and cotton bandages were too
precious  now  to  be  thrown  away  when used, and every lady who nursed at the hospitals brought home baskets of bloody strips to be washed and
ironed and returned for use on other sufferers.

But  to Scarlett, newly emerged from the chrysalis of widowhood, all the war meant was a time of gaiety and excitement. Even the small privations
of clothing and food did not annoy her, so happy was she to be in the world again.

When  she  thought  of  the  dull  times of the past year, with the days going by one very much like another, life seemed to have quickened to an
incredible  speed.  Every  day  dawned as an exciting adventure, a day in which she would meet new men who would ask to call on her, tell her how
pretty she was, and how it was a privilege to fight and, perhaps, to die for her. She could and did love Ashley with the last breath in her body,
but that did not prevent her from inveigling other men into asking to marry her.

The  ever-present  war  in  the  background lent a pleasant informality to social relations, an informality which older people viewed with alarm.
Mothers  found  strange men calling on their daughters, men who came without letters of introduction and whose antecedents were unknown. To their
horror,  mothers  found  their daughters holding hands with these men. Mrs. Merriwether, who had never kissed her husband until after the wedding
ceremony, could scarcely believe her eyes when she caught Maybelle kissing the little Zouave, Rene Picard, and her consternation was even greater
when  Maybelle  refused to be ashamed. Even the fact that Rene immediately asked for her hand did not improve matters. Mrs. Merriwether felt that
the South was heading for a complete moral collapse and frequently said so. Other mothers concurred heartily with her and blamed it on the war.

But  men  who expected to die within a week or a month could not wait a year before they begged to call a girl by her first name, with "Miss," of
course,  preceding it. Nor would they go through the formal and protracted courtships which good manners had prescribed before the war. They were
likely  to propose in three or four months. And girls who knew very well that a lady always refused a gentleman the first three times he proposed
rushed headlong to accept the first time.

This  informality  made  the war a lot of fun for Scarlett. Except for the messy business of nursing and the bore of bandage rolling, she did not
care  if  the  war  lasted forever. In fact, she could endure the hospital with equanimity now because it was a perfect happy hunting ground. The
helpless  wounded succumbed to her charms without a struggle. Renew their bandages, wash their faces, pat up their pillows and fan them, and they
fell in love. Oh, it was Heaven after the last dreary year!

Scarlett  was  back  again  where she had been before she married Charles and it was as if she had never married him, never felt the shock of his
death,  never  borne  Wade. War and marriage and childbirth had passed over her without touching any deep chord within her and she was unchanged.
She  had  a  child  but he was cared for so well by the others in the red brick house she could almost forget him. In her mind and heart, she was
Scarlett  O'Hara again, the belle of the County. Her thoughts and activities were the same as they had been in the old days, but the field of her
activities  had  widened immensely. Careless of the disapproval of Aunt Pitty's friends, she behaved as she had behaved before her marriage, went
to  parties, danced, went riding with soldiers, flirted, did everything she had done as a girl, except stop wearing mourning. This she knew would
be  a straw that would break the backs of Pittypat and Melanie. She was as charming a widow as she had been a girl, pleasant when she had her own
way, obliging as long as it did not discommode her, vain of her looks and her popularity.

She  was  happy  now  where  a few weeks before she had been miserable, happy with her beaux and their reassurances of her charm, as happy as she
could be with Ashley married to Melanie and in danger. But somehow it was easier to bear the thought of Ashley belonging to some one else when he
was far away. With the hundreds of miles stretching between Atlanta and Virginia, he sometimes seemed as much hers as Melanie's.

So the autumn months of 1862 went swiftly by with nursing, dancing, driving and bandage rolling taking up all the time she did not spend on brief
visits  to  Tara.  These  visits  were disappointing, for she had little opportunity for the long quiet talks with her mother to which she looked
forward  while  in  Atlanta, no time to sit by Ellen while she sewed, smelling the faint fragrance of lemon verbena sachet as her skirts rustled,
feeling her soft hands on her cheek in a gentle caress.

Ellen  was  thin  and  preoccupied  now  and  on her feet from morning until long after the plantation was asleep. The demands of the Confederate
commissary  were  growing  heavier  by  the month, and hers was the task of making Tara produce. Even Gerald was busy, for the first time in many
years,  for  he  could  get  no  overseer  to  take  Jonas Wilkerson's place and he was riding his own acres. With Ellen too busy for more than a
goodnight  kiss and Gerald in the fields all day, Scarlett found Tara boring. Even her sisters were taken up with their own concerns. Suellen had
now  come  to  an  "understanding"  with  Frank  Kennedy  and  sang  "When  This Cruel War Is Over" with an arch meaning Scarlett found well-nigh
unendurable, and Carreen was too wrapped up in dreams of Brent Tarleton to be interesting company.

Though Scarlett always went home to Tara with a happy heart, she was never sorry when the inevitable letters came from Pitty and Melanie, begging
her to return. Ellen always sighed at these times, saddened by the thought of her oldest daughter and her only grandchild leaving her.

"But  I  mustn't  be selfish and keep you here when you are needed to nurse in Atlanta," she said. "Only--only, my darling, it seems that I never
get the time to talk to you and to feel that you are my own little girl again before you are gone from me."

"I'm  always your little girl," Scarlett would say and bury her head upon Ellen's breast, her guilt rising up to accuse her. She did not tell her
mother  that  it  was the dancing and the beaux which drew her back to Atlanta and not the service of the Confederacy. There were many things she
kept from her mother these days. But, most of all, she kept secret the fact that Rhett Butler called frequently at Aunt Pittypat's house.



During  the  months  that  followed  the  bazaar,  Rhett called whenever he was in town, taking Scarlett riding in his carriage, escorting her to
danceables and bazaars and waiting outside the hospital to drive her home. She lost her fear of his betraying her secret, but there always lurked
in  the  back  of  her  mind the disquieting memory that he had seen her at her worst and knew the truth about Ashley. It was this knowledge that
checked her tongue when he annoyed her. And he annoyed her frequently.

He was in his mid-thirties, older than any beau she had ever had, and she was as helpless as a child to control and handle him as she had handled
beaux  nearer  her  own  age.  He  always  looked as if nothing had ever surprised him and much had amused him and, when he had gotten her into a
speechless  temper, she felt that she amused him more than anything in the world. Frequently she flared into open wrath under his expert baiting,
for  she  had Gerald's Irish temper along with the deceptive sweetness of face she had inherited from Ellen. Heretofore she had never bothered to
control  her temper except in Ellen's presence. Now it was painful to have to choke back words for fear of his amused grin. If only he would ever
lose his temper too, then she would not feel at such a disadvantage.

After  tilts  with him from which she seldom emerged the victor she vowed he was impossible, ill-bred and no gentleman and she would have nothing
more  to  do  with  him.  But  sooner  or  later, he returned to Atlanta, called, presumably on Aunt Pitty, and presented Scarlett, with overdone
gallantry,  a  box  of  bonbons  he  had brought her from Nassau. Or preempted a seat by her at a musicale or claimed her at a dance, and she was
usually so amused by his bland impudence that she laughed and overlooked his past misdeeds until the next occurred.

For  all  his  exasperating  qualities, she grew to look forward to his calls. There was something exciting about him that she could not analyze,
something  different  from any man she had ever known. There was something breathtaking in the grace of his big body which made his very entrance
into a room like an abrupt physical impact, something in the impertinence and bland mockery of his dark eyes that challenged her spirit to subdue
him.

"It's almost like I was in love with him!" she thought, bewildered. "But I'm not and I just can't understand it."

But  the  exciting  feeling  persisted. When he came to call, his complete masculinity made Aunt Pitty's well-bred and ladylike house seem small,
pale  and  a  trifle  fusty. Scarlett was not the only member of the household who reacted strangely and unwillingly to his presence, for he kept
Aunt Pitty in a flutter and a ferment.

While  Pitty knew Ellen would disapprove of his calls on her daughter, and knew also that the edict of Charleston banning him from polite society
was  not  one  to  be lightly disregarded, she could no more resist his elaborate compliments and hand kissing than a fly can resist a honey pot.
Moreover,  he  usually brought her some little gift from Nassau which he assured her he had purchased especially for her and blockaded in at risk
of  his  life--papers  of  pins and needles, buttons, spools of silk thread and hairpins. It was almost impossible to obtain these small luxuries
now--ladies  were  wearing hand-whittled wooden hairpins and covering acorns with cloth for buttons--and Pitty lacked the moral stamina to refuse
them.  Besides,  she  had  a childish love of surprise packages and could not resist opening his gifts. And, having once opened them, she did not
feel that she could refuse them. Then, having accepted his gifts, she could not summon courage enough to tell him his reputation made it improper
for  him  to call on three lone women who had no male protector. Aunt Pitty always felt that she needed a male protector when Rhett Butler was in
the house.

"I  don't  know  what it is about him," she would sigh helplessly. "But--well, I think he'd be a nice, attractive man if I could just feel that--
well, that deep down in his heart he respected women."

Since  the  return  of  her wedding ring, Melanie had felt that Rhett was a gentleman of rare refinement and delicacy and she was shocked at this
remark. He was unfailingly courteous to her, but she was a little timid with him, largely because she was shy with any man she had not known from
childhood. Secretly she was very sorry for him, a feeling which would have amused him had he been aware of it. She was certain that some romantic
sorrow  had  blighted  his life and made him hard and bitter, and she felt that what he needed was the love of a good woman. In all her sheltered
life she had never seen evil and could scarcely credit its existence, and when gossip whispered things about Rhett and the girl in Charleston she
was  shocked  and  unbelieving.  And,  instead  of  turning  her  against  him,  it only made her more timidly gracious toward him because of her
indignation at what she fancied was a gross injustice done him.

Scarlett  silently  agreed  with  Aunt  Pitty.  She,  too,  felt that he had no respect for any woman, unless perhaps for Melanie. She still felt
unclothed every time his eyes ran up and down her figure. It was not that he ever said anything. Then she could have scorched him with hot words.
It  was the bold way his eyes looked out of his swarthy face with a displeasing air of insolence, as if all women were his property to be enjoyed
in  his  own  good  time. Only with Melanie was this look absent. There was never that cool look of appraisal, never mockery in his eyes, when he
looked at Melanie; and there was an especial note in his voice when he spoke to her, courteous, respectful, anxious to be of service.

"I  don't  see  why  you're  so much nicer to her than to me," said Scarlett petulantly, one afternoon when Melanie and Pitty had retired to take
their naps and she was alone with him.

For  an hour she had watched Rhett hold the yarn Melanie was winding for knitting, had noted the blank inscrutable expression when Melanie talked
at  length  and  with  pride of Ashley and his promotion. Scarlett knew Rhett had no exalted opinion of Ashley and cared nothing at all about the
fact that he had been made a major. Yet he made polite replies and murmured the correct things about Ashley's gallantry.

And if I so much as mention Ashley's name, she had thought irritably, he cocks his eyebrow up and smiles that nasty, knowing smile!

"I'm much prettier than she is," she continued, "and I don't see why you're nicer to her."

"Dare I hope that you are jealous?"

"Oh, don't presume!"

"Another  hope  crushed.  If  I  am 'nicer' to Mrs. Wilkes, it is because she deserves it. She is one of the very few kind, sincere and unselfish
persons  I  have  ever  known.  But perhaps you have failed to note these qualities. And moreover, for all her youth, she is one of the few great
ladies I have ever been privileged to know."

"Do you mean to say you don't think I'm a great lady, too?"

"I think we agreed on the occasion of our first meeting that you were no lady at all."

"Oh,  if you are going to be hateful and rude enough to bring that up again! How can you hold that bit of childish temper against me? That was so
long ago and I've grown up since then and I'd forget all about it if you weren't always harping and hinting about it."

"I  don't think it was childish temper and I don't believe you've changed. You are just as capable now as then of throwing vases if you don't get
your own way. But you usually get your way now. And so there's no necessity for broken bric-a-brac."

"Oh, you are--I wish I was a man! I'd call you out and--"

"And get killed for your pains. I can drill a dime at fifty yards. Better stick to your own weapons--dimples, vases and the like."

"You are just a rascal."

"Do  you  expect  me to fly into a rage at that? I am sorry to disappoint you. You can't make me mad by calling me names that are true. Certainly
I'm  a  rascal,  and  why  not? It's a free country and a man may be a rascal if he chooses. It's only hypocrites like you, my dear lady, just as
black at heart but trying to hide it, who become enraged when called by their right names."

She  was  helpless  before  his  calm  smile and his drawling remarks, for she had never before met anyone who was so completely impregnable. Her
weapons  of  scorn,  coldness and abuse blunted in her hands, for nothing she could say would shame him. It had been her experience that the liar
was  the  hottest  to  defend  his  veracity,  the coward his courage, the ill-bred his gentlemanliness, and the cad his honor. But not Rhett. He
admitted everything and laughed and dared her to say more.

He  came  and  went  during  these  months,  arriving unheralded and leaving without saying good-by. Scarlett never discovered just what business
brought  him  to Atlanta, for few other blockaders found it necessary to come so far away from the coast. They landed their cargoes at Wilmington
or  Charleston,  where  they  were  met  by  swarms  of merchants and speculators from all over the South who assembled to buy blockaded goods at
auction.  It would have pleased her to think that he made these trips to see her, but even her abnormal vanity refused to believe this. If he had
ever  once  made  love  to  her,  seemed jealous of the other men who crowded about her, even tried to hold her hand or begged for a picture or a
handkerchief  to cherish, she would have thought triumphantly he had been caught by her charms. But he remained annoyingly unloverlike and, worst
of all, seemed to see through all her maneuverings to bring him to his knees.

Whenever  he  came to town, there was a feminine fluttering. Not only did the romantic aura of the dashing blockader hang about him but there was
also  the  titillating  element  of  the  wicked  and the forbidden. He had such a bad reputation! And every time the matrons of Atlanta gathered
together  to  gossip,  his  reputation  grew  worse,  which  only  made him all the more glamorous to the young girls. As most of them were quite
innocent,  they  had  heard little more than that he was "quite loose with women"--and exactly how a man went about the business of being "loose"
they  did  not know. They also heard whispers that no girl was safe with him. With such a reputation, it was strange that he had never so much as
kissed the hand of an unmarried girl since he first appeared in Atlanta. But that only served to make him more mysterious and more exciting.

Outside  of  the  army  heroes, he was the most talked-about man in Atlanta. Everyone knew in detail how he had been expelled from West Point for
drunkenness  and  "something  about women." That terrific scandal concerning the Charleston girl he had compromised and the brother he had killed
was  public  property.  Correspondence with Charleston friends elicited the further information that his father, a charming old gentleman with an
iron  will  and  a  ramrod  for a backbone, had cast him out without a penny when he was twenty and even stricken his name from the family Bible.
After  that  he  had  wandered  to California in the gold rush of 1849 and thence to South America and Cuba, and the reports of his activities in
these parts were none too savory. Scrapes about women, several shootings, gun running to the revolutionists in Central America and, worst of all,
professional gambling were included in his career, as Atlanta heard it.

There  was  hardly  a family in Georgia who could not own to their sorrow at least one male member or relative who gambled, losing money, houses,
land  and  slaves. But that was different. A man could gamble himself to poverty and still be a gentleman, but a professional gambler could never
be anything but an outcast.

Had  it  not  been for the upset conditions due to the war and his own services to the Confederate government, Rhett Butler would never have been
received in Atlanta. But now, even the most strait laced felt that patriotism called upon them to be more broad minded. The more sentimental were
inclined  to view that the black sheep of the Butler family had repented of his evil ways and was making an attempt to atone for his sins. So the
ladies  felt  in  duty  bound  to  stretch  a  point,  especially  in the case of so intrepid a blockader. Everyone knew now that the fate of the
Confederacy rested as much upon the skill of the blockade boats in eluding the Yankee fleet as it did upon the soldiers at the front.

Rumor  had  it  that  Captain  Butler  was  one  of  the  best pilots in the South and that he was reckless and utterly without nerves. Reared in
Charleston,  he  knew  every  inlet,  creek, shoal and rock of the Carolina coast near that port, and he was equally at home in the waters around
Wilmington.  He  had  never  lost  a boat or even been forced to dump a cargo. At the onset of the war, he had emerged from obscurity with enough
money  to  buy  a  small  swift boat and now, when blockaded goods realized two thousand per cent on each cargo, he owned four boats. He had good
pilots  and  paid  them  well,  and they slid out of Charleston and Wilmington on dark nights, bearing cotton for Nassau, England and Canada. The
cotton  mills  of England were standing idle and the workers were starving, and any blockader who could outwit the Yankee fleet could command his
own  price  in Liverpool. Rhett's boats were singularly lucky both in taking out cotton for the Confederacy and bringing in the war materials for
which the South was desperate. Yes, the ladies felt they could forgive and forget a great many things for such a brave man.

He  was  a  dashing  figure and one that people turned to look at. He spent money freely, rode a wild black stallion, and wore clothes which were
always  the  height  of  style  and tailoring. The latter in itself was enough to attract attention to him, for the uniforms of the soldiers were
dingy  and  worn  now and the civilians, even when turned out in their best, showed skillful patching and darning. Scarlett thought she had never
seen  such  elegant  pants  as  he  wore,  fawn  colored, shepherd's plaid, and checked. As for his waistcoats, they were indescribably handsome,
especially  the  white  watered-silk  one  with tiny pink rosebuds embroidered on it. And he wore these garments with a still more elegant air as
though unaware of their glory.

There were few ladies who could resist his charms when he chose to exert them, and finally even Mrs. Merriwether unbent and invited him to Sunday
dinner.

Maybelle  Merriwether  was  to marry her little Zouave when he got his next furlough, and she cried every time she thought of it, for she had set
her heart on marrying in a white satin dress and there was no white satin in the Confederacy. Nor could she borrow a dress, for the satin wedding
dresses  of years past had all gone into the making of battle flags. Useless for the patriotic Mrs. Merriwether to upbraid her daughter and point
out that homespun was the proper bridal attire for a Confederate bride. Maybelle wanted satin. She was willing, even proud to go without hairpins
and buttons and nice shoes and candy and tea for the sake of the Cause, but she wanted a satin wedding dress.

Rhett, hearing of this from Melanie, brought in from England yards and yards of gleaming white satin and a lace veil and presented them to her as
a  wedding  gift.  He  did it in such a way that it was unthinkable to even mention paying him for them, and Maybelle was so delighted she almost
kissed him. Mrs. Merriwether knew that so expensive a gift--and a gift of clothing at that--was highly improper, but she could think of no way of
refusing  when  Rhett  told  her  in  the  most  florid  language that nothing was too good to deck the bride of one of our brave heroes. So Mrs.
Merriwether invited him to dinner, feeling that this concession more than paid for the gift.

He not only brought Maybelle the satin but he was able to give excellent hints on the making of the wedding dress. Hoops in Paris were wider this
season  and  skirts  were shorter. They were no longer ruffled but were gathered up in scalloped festoons, showing braided petticoats beneath. He
said, too, that he had seen no pantalets on the streets, so he imagined they were "out." Afterwards, Mrs. Merriwether told Mrs. Elsing she feared
that if she had given him any encouragement at all, he would have told her exactly what kind of drawers were being worn by Parisiennes.

Had  he  been  less  obviously masculine, his ability to recall details of dresses, bonnets and coiffures would have been put down as the rankest
effeminacy.  The  ladies  always felt a little odd when they besieged him with questions about styles, but they did it nevertheless. They were as
isolated  from  the world of fashion as shipwrecked mariners, for few books of fashion came through the blockade. For all they knew the ladies of
France  might  be  shaving  their heads and wearing coonskin caps, so Rhett's memory for furbelows was an excellent substitute for Godey's Lady's
Book.  He  could  and  did  notice  details  so dear to feminine hearts, and after each trip abroad he could be found in the center of a group of
ladies,  telling  that  bonnets were smaller this year and perched higher, covering most of the top of the head, that plumes and not flowers were
being  used  to  trim them, that the Empress of France had abandoned the chignon for evening wear and had her hair piled almost on the top of her
head, showing all of her ears, and that evening frocks were shockingly low again.



For some months, he was the most popular and romantic figure the town knew, despite his previous reputation, despite the faint rumors that he was
engaged  not only in blockading but in speculating on foodstuffs, too. People who did not like him said that after every trip he made to Atlanta,
prices jumped five dollars. But even with this under-cover gossip seeping about, he could have retained his popularity had he considered it worth
retaining.  Instead,  it  seemed  as  though, after trying the company of the staid and patriotic citizens and winning their respect and grudging
liking,  something  perverse  in him made him go out of his way to affront them and show them that his conduct had been only a masquerade and one
which no longer amused him.

It  was  as  though  he bore an impersonal contempt for everyone and everything in the South, the Confederacy in particular, and took no pains to
conceal  it.  It  was  his remarks about the Confederacy that made Atlanta look at him first in bewilderment, then coolly and then with hot rage.
Even  before 1862 passed into 1863, men were bowing to him with studied frigidity and women beginning to draw their daughters to their sides when
he appeared at a gathering.

He  seemed  to  take pleasure not only in affronting the sincere and red-hot loyalties of Atlanta but in presenting himself in the worst possible
light. When well-meaning people complimented him on his bravery in running the blockade, he blandly replied that he was always frightened when in
danger,  as frightened as were the brave boys at the front. Everyone knew there had never been a cowardly Confederate soldier and they found this
statement  peculiarly  irritating. He always referred to the soldiers as "our brave boys" and "our heroes in gray" and did it in such a way as to
convey  the  utmost in insult. When daring young ladies, hoping for a flirtation, thanked him for being one of the heroes who fought for them, he
bowed and declared that such was not the case, for he would do the same thing for Yankee women if the same amount of money were involved.

Since  Scarlett's first meeting with him in Atlanta on the night of the bazaar, he had talked with her in this manner, but now there was a thinly
veiled  note  of  mockery  in  his  conversations  with  everyone.  When praised for his services to the Confederacy, he unfailingly replied that
blockading was a business with him. If he could make as much money out of government contracts, he would say, picking out with his eyes those who
had government contracts, then he would certainly abandon the hazards of blockading and take to selling shoddy cloth, sanded sugar, spoiled flour
and rotten leather to the Confederacy.

Most  of  his  remarks  were  unanswerable,  which  made them all the worse. There had already been minor scandals about those holding government
contracts.  Letters  from  men at the front complained constantly of shoes that wore out in a week, gunpowder that would not ignite, harness that
snapped at any strain, meat that was rotten and flour that was full of weevils. Atlanta people tried to think that the men who sold such stuff to
the  government  must  be  contract  holders  from  Alabama or Virginia or Tennessee, and not Georgians. For did not the Georgia contract holders
include  men  from  the very best families? Were they not the first to contribute to the hospital funds and to the aid of soldiers' orphans? Were
they  not  the first to cheer at "Dixie" and the most rampant seekers, in oratory at least, for Yankee blood? The full tide of fury against those
profiteering on government contracts had not yet risen, and Rhett's words were taken merely as evidence of his own bad breeding.

He  not only affronted the town with insinuations of venality on the part of men in high places and slurs on the courage of the men in the field,
but  he  took  pleasure  in  tricking  the  dignified  citizenry into embarrassing situations. He could no more resist pricking the conceits, the
hypocrisies  and  the  flamboyant  patriotism of those about him than a small boy can resist putting a pin into a balloon. He neatly deflated the
pompous and exposed the ignorant and the bigoted, and he did it in such subtle ways, drawing his victims out by his seemingly courteous interest,
that they never were quite certain what had happened until they stood exposed as windy, high flown and slightly ridiculous.

During  the  months  when  the town accepted him, Scarlett had been under no illusions about him. She knew that his elaborate gallantries and his
florid  speeches  were  all  done with his tongue in his cheek. She knew that he was acting the part of the dashing and patriotic blockade runner
simply  because  it  amused  him.  Sometimes he seemed to her like the County boys with whom she had grown up, the wild Tarleton twins with their
obsession  for  practical jokes; the devil-inspired Fontaines, teasing, mischievous; the Calverts who would sit up all night planning hoaxes. But
there was a difference, for beneath Rhett's seeming lightness there was something malicious, almost sinister in its suave brutality.

Though  she was thoroughly aware of his insincerity, she much preferred him in the role of the romantic blockader. For one thing, it made her own
situation  in associating with him so much easier than it had been at first. So, she was intensely annoyed when he dropped his masquerade and set
out  apparently upon a deliberate campaign to alienate Atlanta's good will. It annoyed her because it seemed foolish and also because some of the
harsh criticism directed at him fell on her.

It was at Mrs. Elsing's silver musicale for the benefit of the convalescents that Rhett signed his final warrant of ostracism. That afternoon the
Elsing  home  was  crowded with soldiers on leave and men from the hospitals, members of the Home Guard and the militia unit, and matrons, widows
and  young girls. Every chair in the house was occupied, and even the long winding stair was packed with guests. The large cut-glass bowl held at
the door by the Elsings' butler had been emptied twice of its burden of silver coins. That in itself was enough to make the affair a success, for
now a dollar in silver was worth sixty dollars in Confederate paper money.

Every girl with any pretense to accomplishments had sung or played the piano, and the tableaux vivants had been greeted with flattering applause.
Scarlett  was much pleased with herself, for not only had she and Melanie rendered a touching duet, "When the Dew Is on the Blossom," followed as
an  encore  by the more sprightly "Oh, Lawd, Ladies, Don't Mind Stephen!" but she had also been chosen to represent the Spirit of the Confederacy
in the last tableau.

She  had looked most fetching, wearing a modestly draped Greek robe of white cheesecloth girdled with red and blue and holding the Stars and Bars
in  one  hand, while with the other she stretched out to the kneeling Captain Carey Ashburn, of Alabama, the gold-hilted saber which had belonged
to Charles and his father.

When  her  tableau  was over, she could not help seeking Rhett's eyes to see if he had appreciated the pretty picture she made. With a feeling of
exasperation  she  saw that he was in an argument and probably had not even noticed her. Scarlett could see by the faces of the group surrounding
him that they were infuriated by what he was saying.

She  made  her  way  toward  them  and, in one of those odd silences which sometimes fall on a gathering, she heard Willie Guinan, of the militia
outfit, say plainly: "Do I understand, sir, that you mean the Cause for which our heroes have died is not sacred?"

"If  you  were run over by a railroad train your death wouldn't sanctify the railroad company, would it?" asked Rhett and his voice sounded as if
he were humbly seeking information.

"Sir," said Willie, his voice shaking, "if we were not under this roof--"

"I tremble to think what would happen," said Rhett. "For, of course, your bravery is too well known."

Willie went scarlet and all conversation ceased. Everyone was embarrassed. Willie was strong and healthy and of military age and yet he wasn't at
the front. Of course, he was the only boy his mother had and, after all, somebody had to be in the militia to protect the state. But there were a
few irreverent snickers from convalescent officers when Rhett spoke of bravery.

"Oh, why doesn't he keep his mouth shut!" thought Scarlett indignantly. "He's simply spoiling the whole party!"

Dr. Meade's brows were thunderous.

"Nothing  may  be  sacred to you, young man," he said, in the voice he always used when making speeches. "But there are many things sacred to the
patriotic men and ladies of the South. And the freedom of our land from the usurper is one and States' Rights is another and--"

Rhett looked lazy and his voice had a silky, almost bored, note.

"All  wars  are  sacred," he said. "To those who have to fight them. If the people who started wars didn't make them sacred, who would be foolish
enough  to fight? But, no matter what rallying cries the orators give to the idiots who fight, no matter what noble purposes they assign to wars,
there  is  never  but  one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in reality money squabbles. But so few people ever realize it. Their
ears  are  too full of bugles and drums and the fine words from stay-at-home orators. Sometimes the rallying cry is 'Save the Tomb of Christ from
the Heathen!' Sometimes it's 'Down with Popery!' and sometimes 'Liberty!' and sometimes 'Cotton, Slavery and States' Rights!'"

"What on earth has the Pope to do with it?" thought Scarlett. "Or Christ's tomb, either?"

But  as  she  hurried toward the incensed group, she saw Rhett bow jauntily and start toward the doorway through the crowd. She started after him
but Mrs. Elsing caught her skirt and held her.

"Let him go," she said in a clear voice that carried throughout the tensely quiet room. "Let him go. He is a traitor, a speculator! He is a viper
that we have nursed to our bosoms!"

Rhett,  standing  in  the  hall,  his  hat  in his hand, heard as he was intended to hear and, turning, surveyed the room for a moment. He looked
pointedly at Mrs. Elsing's flat bosom, grinned suddenly and, bowing, made his exit.



Mrs. Merriwether rode home in Aunt Pitty's carriage, and scarcely had the four ladies seated themselves when she exploded.

"There now, Pittypat Hamilton! I hope you are satisfied!"

"With what?" cried Pitty, apprehensively.

"With the conduct of that wretched Butler man you've been harboring."

Pittypat  fluttered,  too  upset  by  the  accusation  to recall that Mrs. Merriwether had also been Rhett Butler's hostess on several occasions.
Scarlett  and  Melanie  thought  of this, but bred to politeness to their elders, refrained from remarking on the matter. Instead they studiously
looked down at their mittened hands.

"He  insulted  us  all  and the Confederacy too," said Mrs. Merriwether, and her stout bust heaved violently beneath its glittering passementerie
trimmings.  "Saying  that  we  were fighting for money! Saying that our leaders had lied to us! He should be put in jail. Yes, he should. I shall
speak  to  Dr.  Meade about it. If Mr. Merriwether were only alive, he'd tend to him! Now, Pitty Hamilton, you listen to me. You mustn't ever let
that scamp come into your house again!"

"Oh,"  mumbled  Pitty,  helplessly, looking as if she wished she were dead. She looked appealingly at the two girls who kept their eyes cast down
and  then  hopefully  toward Uncle Peter's erect back. She knew he was listening attentively to every word and she hoped he would turn and take a
hand  in  the  conversation,  as  he frequently did. She hoped he would say: "Now, Miss Dolly, you let Miss Pitty be," but Peter made no move. He
disapproved heartily of Rhett Butler and poor Pitty knew it. She sighed and said: "Well, Dolly, if you think--"

"I  do  think,"  returned  Mrs.  Merriwether firmly. "I can't imagine what possessed you to receive him in the first place. After this afternoon,
there won't be a decent home in town that he'll be welcome in. Do get up some gumption and forbid him your house."

She turned a sharp eye on the girls. "I hope you two are marking my words," she continued, "for it's partly your fault, being so pleasant to him.
Just tell him politely but firmly that his presence and his disloyal talk are distinctly unwelcome at your house."

By  this  time  Scarlett was boiling, ready to rear like a horse at the touch of a strange rough hand on its bridle. But she was afraid to speak.
She could not risk Mrs. Merriwether writing another letter to her mother.

"You  old  buffalo!"  she thought, her face crimson with suppressed fury. "How heavenly it would be to tell you just what I think of you and your
bossy ways!"

"I  never  thought  to  live long enough to hear such disloyal words spoken of our Cause," went on Mrs. Merriwether, by this time in a ferment of
righteous  anger.  "Any  man  who  does  not  think  our Cause is just and holy should be hanged! I don't want to hear of you two girls ever even
speaking to him again-- For Heaven's sake, Melly, what ails you?"

Melanie was white and her eyes were enormous.

"I will speak to him again," she said in a low voice. "I will not be rude to him. I will not forbid him the house."

Mrs. Merriwether's breath went out of her lungs as explosively as though she had been punched. Aunt Pitty's fat mouth popped open and Uncle Peter
turned to stare.

"Now,  why  didn't  I  have the gumption to say that?" thought Scarlett, jealousy mixing with admiration. "How did that little rabbit ever get up
spunk enough to stand up to old lady Merriwether?"

Melanie's hands were shaking but she went on hurriedly, as though fearing her courage would fail her if she delayed.

"I  won't  be  rude to him because of what he said, because-- It was rude of him to say it out loud--most ill advised--but it's--it's what Ashley
thinks. And I can't forbid the house to a man who thinks what my husband thinks. It would be unjust."

Mrs. Merriwether's breath had come back and she charged.

"Melly Hamilton, I never heard such a lie in all my life! There was never a Wilkes who was a coward--"

"I never said Ashley was a coward," said Melanie, her eyes beginning to flash. "I said he thinks what Captain Butler thinks, only he expresses it
in different words. And he doesn't go around saying it at musicales, I hope. But he has written it to me."

Scarlett's  guilty conscience stirred as she tried to recall what Ashley might have written that would lead Melanie to make such a statement, but
most  of  the  letters she had read had gone out of her head as soon as she finished reading them. She believed Melanie had simply taken leave of
her senses.

"Ashley  wrote me that we should not be fighting the Yankees. And that we have been betrayed into it by statesmen and orators mouthing catchwords
and prejudices," said Melly rapidly. "He said nothing in the world was worth what this war was going to do to us. He said here wasn't anything at
all to glory--it was just misery and dirt."

"Oh! That letter," thought Scarlett. "Was that what he meant?"

"I don't believe it," said Mrs. Merriwether firmly. "You misunderstood his meaning."

"I  never  misunderstand  Ashley,"  Melanie  replied  quietly, though her lips were trembling. "I understand him perfectly. He meant exactly what
Captain Butler meant, only he didn't say it in a rude way."

"You  should  be  ashamed  of yourself, comparing a fine man like Ashley Wilkes to a scoundrel like Captain Butler! I suppose you, too, think the
Cause is nothing!"

"I--I  don't know what I think," Melanie began uncertainly, her fire deserting her and panic at her outspokenness taking hold of her. "I--I'd die
for the Cause, like Ashley would. But--I mean--I mean, I'll let the men folks do the thinking, because they are so much smarter."

"I never heard the like," snorted Mrs. Merriwether. "Stop, Uncle Peter, you're driving past my house!"

Uncle  Peter,  preoccupied  with  the  conversation  behind  him, had driven past the Merriwether carriage block and he backed up the horse. Mrs.
Merriwether alighted, her bonnet ribbons shaking like sails in a storm.

"You'll be sorry," she said.

Uncle Peter whipped up the horse.

"You young misses ought ter tek shame, gittin' Miss Pitty in a state," he scolded.

"I'm  not  in a state," replied Pitty, surprisingly, for less strain than this had frequently brought on fainting fits. "Melly, honey, I knew you
were doing it just to take up for me and, really, I was glad to see somebody take Dolly down a peg. She's so bossy. How did you have the courage?
But do you think you should have said that about Ashley?"

"But  it's  true," answered Melanie and she began to cry softly. "And I'm not ashamed that he thinks that way. He thinks the war is all wrong but
he's willing to fight and die anyway, and that takes lots more courage than fighting for something you think is right."

"Lawd,  Miss  Melly,  doan cry hyah on Peachtree Street," groaned Uncle Peter, hastening his horse's pace. "Folks'll talk sumpin' scan'lous. Wait
till us gits home."

Scarlett  said  nothing. She did not even squeeze the hand that Melanie had inserted into her palm for comfort. She had read Ashley's letters for
only one purpose--to assure herself that he still loved her. Now Melanie had given a new meaning to passages in the letters which Scarlett's eyes
had  barely seen. It shocked her to realize that anyone as absolutely perfect as Ashley could have any thought in common with such a reprobate as
Rhett  Butler.  She  thought:  "They  both  see  the truth of this war, but Ashley is willing to die about it and Rhett isn't. I think that shows
Rhett's  good  sense."  She  paused  a  moment, horror struck that she could have such a thought about Ashley. "They both see the same unpleasant
truth, but Rhett likes to look it in the face and enrage people by talking about it--and Ashley can hardly bear to face it."

It was very bewildering.



CHAPTER XIII


Under  Mrs.  Merriwether's  goading,  Dr.  Meade  took action, in the form of a letter to the newspaper wherein he did not mention Rhett by name,
though his meaning was obvious. The editor, sensing the social drama of the letter, put it on the second page of the paper, in itself a startling
innovation,  as the first two pages of the paper were always devoted to advertisements of slaves, mules, plows, coffins, houses for sale or rent,
cures for private diseases, abortifacients and restoratives for lost manhood.

The  doctor's  letter  was the first of a chorus of indignation that was beginning to be heard all over the South against speculators, profiteers
and  holders of government contracts. Conditions in Wilmington, the chief blockade port, now that Charleston's port was practically sealed by the
Yankee  gunboats,  had reached the proportions of an open scandal. Speculators swarmed Wilmington and, having the ready cash, bought up boatloads
of  goods  and held them for a rise in prices. The rise always came, for with the increasing scarcity of necessities, prices leaped higher by the
month.  The civilian population had either to do without or buy at the speculators' prices, and the poor and those in moderate circumstances were
suffering  increasing hardships. With the rise in prices, Confederate money sank, and with its rapid fall there rose a wild passion for luxuries.
Blockaders  were  commissioned  to bring in necessities but now it was the higher-priced luxuries that filled their boats to the exclusion of the
things  the  Confederacy  vitally  needed.  People frenziedly bought these luxuries with the money they had today, fearing that tomorrow's prices
would be higher and the money worthless.

To  make  matters worse, there was only one railroad line from Wilmington to Richmond and, while thousands of barrels of flour and boxes of bacon
spoiled  and rotted in wayside stations for want of transportation, speculators with wines, taffetas and coffee to sell seemed always able to get
their goods to Richmond two days after they were landed at Wilmington.

The  rumor  which  had been creeping about underground was now being openly discussed, that Rhett Butler not only ran his own four boats and sold
the  cargoes at unheard-of prices but bought up the cargoes of other boats and held them for rises in prices. It was said that he was at the head
of  a  combine worth more than a million dollars, with Wilmington as its headquarters for the purpose of buying blockade goods on the docks. They
had  dozens  of warehouses in that city and in Richmond, so the story ran, and the warehouses were crammed with food and clothing that were being
held for higher prices. Already soldiers and civilians alike were feeling the pinch, and the muttering against him and his fellow speculators was
bitter.

"There  are many brave and patriotic men in the blockade arm of the Confederacy's naval service," ran the last of the doctor's letter, "unselfish
men who are risking their lives and all their wealth that the Confederacy may survive. They are enshrined in the hearts of all loyal Southerners,
and  no one begrudges them the scant monetary returns they make for their risks. They are unselfish gentlemen, and we honor them. Of these men, I
do not speak.

"But  there  are other scoundrels who masquerade under the cloak of the blockader for their own selfish gains, and I call down the just wrath and
vengeance of an embattled people, fighting in the justest of Causes, on these human vultures who bring in satins and laces when our men are dying
for  want of quinine, who load their boats with tea and wines when our heroes are writhing for lack of morphia. I execrate these vampires who are
sucking  the  lifeblood  of  the  men  who follow Robert Lee--these men who are making the very name of blockader a stench in the nostrils of all
patriotic  men.  How  can we endure these scavengers in our midst with their varnished boots when our boys are tramping barefoot into battle? How
can we tolerate them with their champagnes and their pates of Strasbourg when our soldiers are shivering about their camp fires and gnawing moldy
bacon? I call upon every loyal Confederate to cast them out."

Atlanta read, knew the oracle had spoken, and, as loyal Confederates, they hastened to cast Rhett out.

Of  all  the  homes  which  had received him in the fall of 1862, Miss Pittypat's was almost the only one into which he could enter in 1863. And,
except  for  Melanie,  he probably would not have been received there. Aunt Pitty was in a state whenever he was in town. She knew very well what
her  friends  were  saying  when she permitted him to call but she still lacked the courage to tell him he was unwelcome. Each time he arrived in
Atlanta,  she  set  her fat mouth and told the girls that she would meet him at the door and forbid him to enter. And each time he came, a little
package in his hand and a compliment for her charm and beauty on his lips, she wilted.

"I  just don't know what to do," she would moan. "He just looks at me and I--I'm scared to death of what he would do if I told him. He's got such
a  bad  reputation.  Do  you  suppose  he would strike me--or--or-- Oh, dear, if Charlie were only alive! Scarlett, YOU must tell him not to call
again--tell  him  in  a  nice way. Oh, me! I do believe you encourage him, and the whole town is talking and, if your mother ever finds out, what
will  she  say to me? Melly, you must not be so nice to him. Be cool and distant and he will understand. Oh, Melly, do you think I'd better write
Henry a note and ask him to speak to Captain Butler?"

"No,  I  don't,"  said  Melanie.  "And I won't be rude to him, either. I think people are acting like chickens with their heads off about Captain
Butler.  I'm  sure  he  can't be all the bad things Dr. Meade and Mrs. Merriwether say he is. He wouldn't hold food from starving people. Why, he
even gave me a hundred dollars for the orphans. I'm sure he's just as loyal and patriotic as any of us and he's just too proud to defend himself.
You know how obstinate men are when they get their backs up."

Aunt  Pitty  knew  nothing  about  men,  either with their backs up or otherwise, and she could only wave her fat little hands helplessly. As for
Scarlett, she had long ago become resigned to Melanie's habit of seeing good in everyone. Melanie was a fool, but there was nothing anybody could
do about it.

Scarlett knew that Rhett was not being patriotic and, though she would have died rather than confess it, she did not care. The little presents he
brought  her  from  Nassau,  little oddments that a lady could accept with propriety, were what mattered most to her. With prices as high as they
were,  where  on  earth  could  she  get  needles  and  bonbons  and  hairpins,  if  she forbade the house to him? No, it was easier to shift the
responsibility  to  Aunt  Pitty, who after all was the head of the house, the chaperon and the arbiter of morals. Scarlett knew the town gossiped
about  Rhett's  calls, and about her too; but she also knew that in the eyes of Atlanta Melanie Wilkes could do no wrong, and if Melanie defended
Rhett his calls were still tinged with respectability.

However, life would be pleasanter if Rhett would recant his heresies. She wouldn't have to suffer the embarrassment of seeing him cut openly when
she walked down Peachtree Street with him.

"Even  if  you  think  such  things, why do you say them?" she scolded. "If you'd just think what you please but keep your mouth shut, everything
would be so much nicer."

"That's  your  system,  isn't  it, my green-eyed hypocrite? Scarlett, Scarlett! I hoped for more courageous conduct from you. I thought the Irish
said what they thought and the Divvil take the hindermost. Tell me truthfully, don't you sometimes almost burst from keeping your mouth shut?"

"Well--yes," Scarlett confessed reluctantly. "I do get awfully bored when they talk about the Cause, morning, noon and night. But goodness, Rhett
Butler, if I admitted it nobody would speak to me and none of the boys would dance with me!"

"Ah,  yes, and one must be danced with, at all costs. Well, I admire your self-control but I do not find myself equal to it. Nor can I masquerade
in a cloak of romance and patriotism, no matter how convenient it might be. There are enough stupid patriots who are risking every cent they have
in  the  blockade  and  who  are  going  to come out of this war paupers. They don't need me among their number, either to brighten the record of
patriotism  or  to  increase  the roll of paupers. Let them have the haloes. They deserve them--for once I am being sincere--and, besides, haloes
will be about all they will have in a year or so."

"I think you are very nasty to even hint such things when you know very well that England and France are coming in on our side in no time and--"

"Why,  Scarlett! You must have been reading a newspaper! I'm surprised at you. Don't do it again. It addles women's brains. For your information,
I  was  in  England, not a month ago, and I'll tell you this. England will never help the Confederacy. England never bets on the underdog. That's
why  she's  England.  Besides, the fat Dutch woman who is sitting on the throne is a God-fearing soul and she doesn't approve of slavery. Let the
English  mill workers starve because they can't get our cotton but never, never strike a blow for slavery. And as for France, that weak imitation
of  Napoleon is far too busy establishing the French in Mexico to be bothered with us. In fact he welcomes this war, because it keeps us too busy
to  run  his  troops out of Mexico. . . . No, Scarlett, the idea of assistance from abroad is just a newspaper invention to keep up the morale of
the  South.  The  Confederacy  is doomed. It's living on its hump now, like the camel, and even the largest of humps aren't inexhaustible. I give
myself  about  six  months  more  of  blockading  and  then I'm through. After that, it will be too risky. And I'll sell my boats to some foolish
Englishman  who  thinks  he  can  slip them through. But one way or the other, it's not bothering me. I've made money enough, and it's in English
banks and in gold. None of this worthless paper for me."

As always when he spoke, he sounded so plausible. Other people might call his utterances treachery but, to Scarlett, they always rang with common
sense  and  truth.  And  she knew that this was utterly wrong, knew she should be shocked and infuriated. Actually she was neither, but she could
pretend to be. It made her feel more respectable and ladylike.

"I  think  what Dr. Meade wrote about was right, Captain Butler. The only way to redeem yourself is to enlist after you sell your boats. You're a
West Pointer and--"

"You talk like a Baptist preacher making a recruiting speech. Suppose I don't want to redeem myself? Why should I fight to uphold the system that
cast me out? I shall take pleasure in seeing it smashed."

"I never heard of any system," she said crossly.

"No? And yet you are a part of it, like I was, and I'll wager you don't like it any more than I did. Well, why am I the black sheep of the Butler
family?  For  this reason and no other--I didn't conform to Charleston and I couldn't. And Charleston is the South, only intensified. I wonder if
you  realize  yet  what  a bore it is? So many things that one must do because they've always been done. So many things, quite harmless, that one
must  not  do  for the same reason. So many things that annoyed me by their senselessness. Not marrying the young lady, of whom you have probably
heard,  was  merely  the last straw. Why should I marry a boring fool, simply because an accident prevented me from getting her home before dark?
And  why permit her wild-eyed brother to shoot and kill me, when I could shoot straighter? If I had been a gentleman, of course, I would have let
him kill me and that would have wiped the blot from the Butler escutcheon. But--I like to live. And so I've lived and I've had a good time. . . .
When I think of my brother, living among the sacred cows of Charleston, and most reverent toward them, and remember his stodgy wife and his Saint
Cecilia Balls and his everlasting rice fields--then I know the compensation for breaking with the system. Scarlett, our Southern way of living is
as antiquated as the feudal system of the Middle Ages. The wonder is that it's lasted as long as it has. It had to go and it's going now. And yet
you  expect me to listen to orators like Dr. Meade who tell me our Cause is just and holy? And get so excited by the roll of drums that I'll grab
a  musket and rush off to Virginia to shed my blood for Marse Robert? What kind of a fool do you think I am? Kissing the rod that chastised me is
not  in  my line. The South and I are even now. The South threw me out to starve once. I haven't starved, and I am making enough money out of the
South's death throes to compensate me for my lost birthright."

"I  think  you  are  vile  and mercenary," said Scarlett, but her remark was automatic. Most of what he was saying went over her head, as did any
conversation  that  was  not personal. But part of it made sense. There were such a lot of foolish things about life among nice people. Having to
pretend that her heart was in the grave when it wasn't. And how shocked everybody had been when she danced at the bazaar. And the infuriating way
people  lifted  their  eyebrows  every  time she did or said anything the least bit different from what every other young woman did and said. But
still,  she was jarred at hearing him attack the very traditions that irked her most. She had lived too long among people who dissembled politely
not to feel disturbed at hearing her own thoughts put into words.

"Mercenary? No, I'm only farsighted. Though perhaps that is merely a synonym for mercenary. At least, people who were not as farsighted as I will
call  it  that. Any loyal Confederate who had a thousand dollars in cash in 1861 could have done what I did, but how few were mercenary enough to
take advantage of their opportunities! As for instance, right after Fort Sumter fell and before the blockade was established, I bought up several
thousand bales of cotton at dirt-cheap prices and ran them to England. They are still there in warehouses in Liverpool. I've never sold them. I'm
holding them until the English mills have to have cotton and will give me any price I ask. I wouldn't be surprised if I got a dollar a pound."

"You'll get a dollar a pound when elephants roost in trees!"

"I'll  believe I'll get it. Cotton is at seventy-two cents a pound already. I'm going to be a rich man when this war is over, Scarlett, because I
was  farsighted--pardon  me, mercenary. I told you once before that there were two times for making big money, one in the upbuilding of a country
and  the other in its destruction. Slow money on the upbuilding, fast money in the crack-up. Remember my words. Perhaps they may be of use to you
some day."

"I  do appreciate good advice so much," said Scarlett, with all the sarcasm she could muster. "But I don't need your advice. Do you think Pa is a
pauper? He's got all the money I'll ever need and then I have Charles' property besides."

"I imagine the French aristocrats thought practically the same thing until the very moment when they climbed into the tumbrils."



Frequently  Rhett  pointed  out  to  Scarlett  the  inconsistency  of her wearing black mourning clothes when she was participating in all social
activities.  He  liked bright colors and Scarlett's funeral dresses and the crepe veil that hung from her bonnet to her heels both amused him and
offended  him.  But  she  clung  to her dull black dresses and her veil, knowing that if she changed them for colors without waiting several more
years, the town would buzz even more than it was already buzzing. And besides, how would she ever explain to her mother?

Rhett  said frankly that the crepe veil made her look like a crow and the black dresses added ten years to her age. This ungallant statement sent
her flying to the mirror to see if she really did look twenty-eight instead of eighteen.

"I  should  think  you'd  have  more  pride  than  to try to look like Mrs. Merriwether," he taunted. "And better taste than to wear that veil to
advertise  a  grief  I'm  sure you never felt. I'll lay a wager with you. I'll have that bonnet and veil off your head and a Paris creation on it
within two months."

"Indeed,  no,  and don't let's discuss it any further," said Scarlett, annoyed by his reference to Charles. Rhett, who was preparing to leave for
Wilmington for another trip abroad, departed with a grin on his face.

One  bright  summer morning some weeks later, he reappeared with a brightly trimmed hatbox in his hand and, after finding that Scarlett was alone
in  the  house, he opened it. Wrapped in layers of tissue was a bonnet, a creation that made her cry: "Oh, the darling thing!" as she reached for
it.  Starved  for the sight, much less the touch, of new clothes, it seemed the loveliest bonnet she had ever seen. It was of dark-green taffeta,
lined  with  water  silk of a pale-jade color. The ribbons that tied under the chin were as wide as her hand and they, too, were pale green. And,
curled about the brim of this confection was the perkiest of green ostrich plumes.

"Put it on," said Rhett, smiling.

She  flew  across  the  room  to the mirror and plopped it on her head, pushing back her hair to show her earrings and tying the ribbon under her
chin.

"How do I look?" she cried, pirouetting for his benefit and tossing her head so that the plume danced. But she knew she looked pretty even before
she saw confirmation in his eyes. She looked attractively saucy and the green of the lining made her eyes dark emerald and sparkling.

"Oh, Rhett, whose bonnet is it? I'll buy it. I'll give you every cent I've got for it."

"It's your bonnet," he said. "Who else could wear that shade of green? Don't you think I carried the color of your eyes well in my mind?"

"Did you really have it trimmed just for me?"

"Yes, and there's 'Rue de la Paix' on the box, if that means anything to you."

It  meant  nothing  to  her, smiling at her reflection in the mirror. Just at this moment, nothing mattered to her except that she looked utterly
charming in the first pretty hat she had put on her head in two years. What she couldn't do with this hat! And then her smile faded.

"Don't you like it?"

"Oh, it's a dream but-- Oh, I do hate to have to cover this lovely green with crepe and dye the feather black."

He was beside her quickly and his deft fingers untied the wide bow under her chin. In a moment the hat was back in its box.

"What are you doing? You said it was mine."

"But not to change to a mourning bonnet. I shall find some other charming lady with green eyes who appreciates my taste."

"Oh, you shan't! I'll die if I don't have it! Oh, please, Rhett, don't be mean! Let me have it."

"And turn it into a fright like your other hats? No."

She  clutched at the box. That sweet thing that made her look so young and enchanting to be given to some other girl? Oh, never! For a moment she
thought of the horror of Pitty and Melanie. She thought of Ellen and what she would say, and she shivered. But vanity was stronger.

"I won't change it. I promise. Now, do let me have it."

He gave her the box with a slightly sardonic smile and watched her while she put it on again and preened herself.

"How much is it?" she asked suddenly, her face falling. "I have only fifty dollars but next month--"

"It would cost about two thousand dollars, Confederate money," he said with a grin at her woebegone expression.

"Oh, dear-- Well, suppose I give you the fifty now and then when I get--"

"I don't want any money for it," he said. "It's a gift."

Scarlett's mouth dropped open. The line was so closely, so carefully drawn where gifts from men were concerned.

"Candy  and  flowers,  dear," Ellen had said time and again, "and perhaps a book of poetry or an album or a small bottle of Florida water are the
only  things a lady may accept from a gentleman. Never, never any expensive gift, even from your fiance. And never any gift of jewelry or wearing
apparel, not even gloves or handkerchiefs. Should you accept such gifts, men would know you were no lady and would try to take liberties."

"Oh, dear," thought Scarlett, looking first at herself in the mirror and then at Rhett's unreadable face. "I simply can't tell him I won't accept
it.  It's too darling. I'd--I'd almost rather he took a liberty, if it was a very small one." Then she was horrified at herself for having such a
thought and she turned pink.

"I'll--I'll give you the fifty dollars--"

"If you do I will throw it in the gutter. Or, better still buy masses for your soul. I'm sure your soul could do with a few masses."

She laughed unwillingly, and the laughing reflection under the green brim decided her instantly.

"Whatever are you trying to do to me?"

"I'm  tempting  you  with  fine  gifts  until  your girlish ideals are quite worn away and you are at my mercy," he said. "'Accept only candy and
flowers from gentlemen, dearie,'" he mimicked, and she burst into a giggle.

"You are a clever, black-hearted wretch, Rhett Butler, and you know very well this bonnet's too pretty to be refused."

His eyes mocked her, even while they complimented her beauty.

"Of  course,  you  can  tell Miss Pitty that you gave me a sample of taffeta and green silk and drew a picture of the bonnet and I extorted fifty
dollars from you for it."

"No.  I shall say one hundred dollars and she'll tell everybody in town and everybody will be green with envy and talk about my extravagance. But
Rhett, you mustn't bring me anything else so expensive. It's awfully kind of you, but I really couldn't accept anything else."

"Indeed?  Well,  I shall bring you presents so long as it pleases me and so long as I see things that will enhance your charms. I shall bring you
dark-green  watered  silk  for  a  frock  to  match the bonnet. And I warn you that I am not kind. I am tempting you with bonnets and bangles and
leading  you  into  a  pit. Always remember I never do anything without reason and I never give anything without expecting something in return. I
always get paid."

His black eyes sought her face and traveled to her lips.

Scarlett  cast  down  her eyes, excitement filling her. Now, he was going to try to take liberties, just as Ellen predicted. He was going to kiss
her,  or try to kiss her, and she couldn't quite make up her flurried mind which it should be. If she refused, he might jerk the bonnet right off
her  head  and  give  it to some other girl. On the other hand, if she permitted one chaste peck, he might bring her other lovely presents in the
hope  of  getting  another  kiss.  Men  set  such  a  store  by kisses, though Heaven alone knew why. And lots of times, after one kiss they fell
completely  in  love  with a girl and made most entertaining spectacles of themselves, provided the girl was clever and withheld her kisses after
the  first one. It would be exciting to have Rhett Butler in love with her and admitting it and begging for a kiss or a smile. Yes, she would let
him kiss her.

But he made no move to kiss her. She gave him a sidelong glance from under her lashes and murmured encouragingly.

"So you always get paid, do you? And what do you expect to get from me?"

"That remains to be seen."

"Well,  if  you  think  I'll  marry  you to pay for the bonnet, I won't," she said daringly and gave her head a saucy flirt that set the plume to
bobbing.

His white teeth gleamed under his little mustache.

"Madam, you flatter yourself, I do not want to marry you or anyone else. I am not a marrying man."

"Indeed!" she cried, taken aback and now determined that he should take some liberty. "I don't even intend to kiss you, either."

"Then why is your mouth all pursed up in that ridiculous way?"

"Oh!"  she  cried  as she caught a glimpse of herself and saw that her red lips were indeed in the proper pose for a kiss. "Oh!" she cried again,
losing her temper and stamping her foot. "You are the horridest man I have ever seen and I don't care if I never lay eyes on you again!"

"If  you  really  felt  that  way,  you'd stamp on the bonnet. My, what a passion you are in and it's quite becoming, as you probably know. Come,
Scarlett, stamp on the bonnet to show me what you think of me and my presents."

"Don't  you  dare  touch this bonnet," she said, clutching it by the bow and retreating. He came after her, laughing softly and took her hands in
his.

"Oh,  Scarlett, you are so young you wring my heart," he said. "And I shall kiss you, as you seem to expect it," and leaning down carelessly, his
mustache just grazed her cheek. "Now, do you feel that you must slap me to preserve the proprieties?"

Her  lips  mutinous, she looked up into his eyes and saw so much amusement in their dark depths that she burst into laughter. What a tease he was
and  how  exasperating! If he didn't want to marry her and didn't even want to kiss her, what did he want? If he wasn't in love with her, why did
he call so often and bring her presents?

"That's  better," he said. "Scarlett, I'm a bad influence on you and if you have any sense you will send me packing--if you can. I'm very hard to
get rid of. But I'm bad for you."

"Are you?"

"Can't  you see it? Ever since I met you at the bazaar, your career has been most shocking and I'm to blame for most of it. Who encouraged you to
dance?  Who  forced  you  to  admit  that  you thought our glorious Cause was neither glorious nor sacred? Who goaded you into admitting that you
thought men were fools to die for high-sounding principles? Who has aided you in giving the old ladies plenty to gossip about? Who is getting you
out of mourning several years too soon? And who, to end all this, has lured you into accepting a gift which no lady can accept and still remain a
lady?"

"You flatter yourself, Captain Butler. I haven't done anything so scandalous and I'd have done everything you mentioned without your aid anyway."

"I  doubt  that," he said and his face went suddenly quiet and somber. "You'd still be the broken-hearted widow of Charles Hamilton and famed for
your good deeds among the wounded. Eventually, however--"

But  she  was not listening, for she was regarding herself pleasedly in the mirror again, thinking she would wear the bonnet to the hospital this
very afternoon and take flowers to the convalescent officers.

That  there  was  truth in his last words did not occur to her. She did not see that Rhett had pried open the prison of her widowhood and set her
free  to queen it over unmarried girls when her days as a belle should have been long past. Nor did she see that under his influence she had come
a  long  way  from Ellen's teachings. The change had been so gradual, the flouting of one small convention seeming to have no connection with the
flouting  of  another,  and none of them any connection with Rhett. She did not realize that, with his encouragement, she had disregarded many of
the sternest injunctions of her mother concerning the proprieties, forgotten the difficult lessons in being a lady.

She  only  saw  that the bonnet was the most becoming one she ever had, that it had not cost her a penny and that Rhett must be in love with her,
whether he admitted it or not. And she certainly intended to find a way to make him admit it.



The  next  day,  Scarlett  was  standing in front of the mirror with a comb in her hand and her mouth full of hairpins, attempting a new coiffure
which  Maybelle,  fresh  from  a  visit to her husband in Richmond, had said was the rage at the Capital. It was called "Cats, Rats and Mice" and
presented  many  difficulties.  The  hair  was  parted in the middle and arranged in three rolls of graduating size on each side of the head, the
largest,  nearest  the  part,  being  the  "cat." The "cat" and the "rat" were easy to fix but the "mice" kept slipping out of her hairpins in an
exasperating  manner.  However,  she was determined to accomplish it, for Rhett was coming to supper and he always noticed and commented upon any
innovation of dress or hair.

As she struggled with her bushy, obstinate locks, perspiration beading her forehead, she heard light running feet in the downstairs hall and knew
that  Melanie  was  home  from  the  hospital.  As she heard her fly up the stairs, two at a time, she paused, hairpin in mid-air, realizing that
something  must  be  wrong,  for Melanie always moved as decorously as a dowager. She went to the door and threw it open, and Melanie ran in, her
face flushed and frightened, looking like a guilty child.

There were tears on her cheeks, her bonnet was hanging on her neck by the ribbons and her hoops swaying violently. She was clutching something in
her hand, and the reek of heavy cheap perfume came into the room with her.

"Oh,  Scarlett!"  she  cried,  shutting  the  door  and  sinking on the bed. "Is Auntie home yet? She isn't? Oh, thank the Lord! Scarlett, I'm so
mortified I could die! I nearly swooned and, Scarlett, Uncle Peter is threatening to tell Aunt Pitty!"

"Tell what?"

"That I was talking to that--to Miss--Mrs.--" Melanie fanned her hot face with her handkerchief. "That woman with red hair, named Belle Watling!"

"Why, Melly!" cried Scarlett, so shocked she could only stare.

Belle Watling was the red-haired woman she had seen on the street the first day she came to Atlanta and by now, she was easily the most notorious
woman in town. Many prostitutes had flocked into Atlanta, following the soldiers, but Belle stood out above the rest, due to her flaming hair and
the  gaudy,  overly  fashionable  dresses  she wore. She was seldom seen on Peachtree Street or in any nice neighborhood, but when she did appear
respectable  women  made haste to cross the street to remove themselves from her vicinity. And Melanie had been talking with her. No wonder Uncle
Peter was outraged.

"I  shall  die  if Aunt Pitty finds out! You know she'll cry and tell everybody in town and I'll be disgraced," sobbed Melanie. "And it wasn't my
fault.  I--I  couldn't  run  away  from her. It would have been so rude. Scarlett, I--I felt sorry for her. Do you think I'm bad for feeling that
way?"

But  Scarlett  was not concerned with the ethics of the matter. Like most innocent and well-bred young women, she had a devouring curiosity about
prostitutes.

"What did she want? What does she talk like?"

"Oh,  she used awful grammar but I could see she was trying so hard to be elegant, poor thing. I came out of the hospital and Uncle Peter and the
carriage  weren't  waiting,  so  I thought I'd walk home. And when I went by the Emersons' yard, there she was hiding behind the hedge! Oh, thank
Heaven,  the  Emersons  are in Macon! And she said, 'Please, Mrs. Wilkes, do speak a minute with me.' I don't know how she knew my name. I knew I
ought to run as hard as I could but--well, Scarlett, she looked so sad and--well, sort of pleading. And she had on a black dress and black bonnet
and  no paint and really looked decent but for that red hair. And before I could answer she said. 'I know I shouldn't speak to you but I tried to
talk to that old peahen, Mrs. Elsing, and she ran me away from the hospital.'"

"Did she really call her a peahen?" said Scarlett pleasedly and laughed.

"Oh,  don't  laugh.  It  isn't funny. It seems that Miss--this woman, wanted to do something for the hospital--can you imagine it? She offered to
nurse every morning and, of course, Mrs. Elsing must have nearly died at the idea and ordered her out of the hospital. And then she said, 'I want
to  do  something,  too. Ain't I a Confedrut, good as you?' And, Scarlett, I was right touched at her wanting to help. You know, she can't be all
bad if she wants to help the Cause. Do you think I'm bad to feel that way?"

"For Heaven's sake, Melly, who cares if you're bad? What else did she say?"

"She  said  she'd  been watching the ladies go by to the hospital and thought I had--a--a kind face and so she stopped me. She had some money and
she  wanted me to take it and use it for the hospital and not tell a soul where it came from. She said Mrs. Elsing wouldn't let it be used if she
knew  what  kind  of  money it was. What kind of money! That's when I thought I'd swoon! And I was so upset and anxious to get away, I just said:
'Oh,  yes,  indeed,  how  sweet  of  you'  or  something  idiotic, and she smiled and said: 'That's right Christian of you' and shoved this dirty
handkerchief into my hand. Ugh, can you smell the perfume?"

Melanie held out a man's handkerchief, soiled and highly perfumed, in which some coins were knotted.

"She  was  saying thank you and something about bringing me some money every week and just then Uncle Peter drove up and saw me!" Melly collapsed
into  tears  and  laid  her head on the pillow. "And when he saw who was with me, he--Scarlett, he HOLLERED at me! Nobody has ever hollered at me
before  in  my  whole  life.  And he said, 'You git in dis hyah cah'ige dis minute!' Of course, I did, and all the way home he blessed me out and
wouldn't  let  me  explain  and said he was going to tell Aunt Pitty. Scarlett, do go down and beg him not to tell her. Perhaps he will listen to
you. It will kill Auntie if she knows I ever even looked that woman in the face. Will you?"

"Yes, I will. But let's see how much money is in here. It feels heavy."

She untied the knot and a handful of gold coins rolled out on the bed.

"Scarlett, there's fifty dollars here! And in gold!" cried Melanie, awed, as she counted the bright pieces. "Tell me, do you think it's all right
to  use  this kind--well, money made--er--this way for the boys? Don't you think that maybe God will understand that she wanted to help and won't
care if it is tainted? When I think of how many things the hospital needs--"

But Scarlett was not listening. She was looking at the dirty handkerchief, and humiliation and fury were filling her. There was a monogram in the
corner  in  which  were  the  initials  "R.  K.  B." In her top drawer was a handkerchief just like this, one that Rhett Butler had lent her only
yesterday to wrap about the stems of wild flowers they had picked. She had planned to return it to him when he came to supper tonight.

So  Rhett consorted with that vile Watling creature and gave her money. That was where the contribution to the hospital came from. Blockade gold.
And  to  think that Rhett would have the gall to look a decent woman in the face after being with that creature! And to think that she could have
believed he was in love with her! This proved he couldn't be.

Bad women and all they involved were mysterious and revolting matters to her. She knew that men patronized these women for purposes which no lady
should  mention--or,  if  she  did mention them, in whispers and by indirection and euphemism. She had always thought that only common vulgar men
visited such women. Before this moment, it had never occurred to her that nice men--that is, men she met at nice homes and with whom she danced--
could  possibly  do  such things. It opened up an entirely new field of thought and one that was horrifying. Perhaps all men did this! It was bad
enough  that  they  forced  their  wives  to  go  through  such  indecent  performances  but to actually seek out low women and pay them for such
accommodation! Oh, men were so vile, and Rhett Butler was the worst of them all!

She  would  take  this  handkerchief  and  fling  it in his face and show him the door and never, never speak to him again. But no, of course she
couldn't  do  that.  She  could  never, never let him know she even realized that bad women existed, much less that he visited them. A lady could
never do that.

"Oh," she thought in fury. "If I just wasn't a lady, what wouldn't I tell that varmint!"

And,  crumbling  the  handkerchief  in  her  hand, she went down the stairs to the kitchen in search of Uncle Peter. As she passed the stove, she
shoved the handkerchief into the flames and with impotent anger watched it burn.




CHAPTER XIV


Hope  was  rolling  high  in  every  Southern  heart as the summer of 1863 came in. Despite privation and hardships, despite food speculators and
kindred  scourges, despite death and sickness and suffering which had now left their mark on nearly every family, the South was again saying "One
more  victory  and  the  war is over," saying it with even more happy assurance than in the summer before. The Yankees were proving a hard nut to
crack but they were cracking at last.

Christmas of 1862 had been a happy one for Atlanta, for the whole South. The Confederacy had scored a smashing victory, at Fredericksburg and the
Yankee  dead and wounded were counted in the thousands. There was universal rejoicing in that holiday season, rejoicing and thankfulness that the
tide  was  turning.  The  army  in  butternut were now seasoned fighters, their generals had proven their mettle, and everyone knew that when the
campaign reopened in the spring, the Yankees would be crushed for good and all.

Spring  came  and  the  fighting  recommenced.  May came and the Confederacy won another great victory at Chancellorsville. The South roared with
elation.

Closer  at  home, a Union cavalry dash into Georgia had been turned into a Confederate triumph. Folks were still laughing and slapping each other
on  the  back  and  saying:  "Yes,  sir!  When  old Nathan Bedford Forrest gets after them, they better git!" Late in April, Colonel Streight and
eighteen hundred Yankee cavalry had made a surprise raid into Georgia, aiming at Rome, only a little more than sixty miles north of Atlanta. They
had  ambitious  plans  to  cut  the vitally important railroad between Atlanta and Tennessee and then swing southward into Atlanta to destroy the
factories and the war supplies concentrated there in that key city of the Confederacy.

It was a bold stroke and it would have cost the South dearly, except for Forrest. With only one-third as many men--but what men and what riders!-
-he had started after them, engaged them before they even reached Rome, harassed them day and night and finally captured the entire force!

The  news  reached Atlanta almost simultaneously with the news of the victory at Chancellorsville, and the town fairly rocked with exultation and
with laughter. Chancellorsville might be a more important victory but the capture of Streight's raiders made the Yankees positively ridiculous.

"No, sir, they'd better not fool with old Forrest," Atlanta said gleefully as the story was told over and over.

The tide of the Confederacy's fortune was running strong and full now, sweeping the people jubilantly along on its flood. True, the Yankees under
Grant had been besieging Vicksburg since the middle of May. True, the South had suffered a sickening loss when Stonewall Jackson had been fatally
wounded  at  Chancellorsville.  True,  Georgia  had lost one of her bravest and most brilliant sons when General T. R. R. Cobb had been killed at
Fredericksburg.  But  the Yankees just couldn't stand any more defeats like Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. They'd have to give in, and then
this cruel war would be over.

The  first  days of July came and with them the rumor, later confirmed by dispatches, that Lee was marching into Pennsylvania. Lee in the enemy's
territory! Lee forcing battle! This was the last fight of the war!

Atlanta  was wild with excitement, pleasure and a hot thirst for vengeance. Now the Yankees would know what it meant to have the war carried into
their  own  country.  Now  they'd  know  what it meant to have fertile fields stripped, horses and cattle stolen, houses burned, old men and boys
dragged off to prison and women and children turned out to starve.

Everyone  knew  what  the Yankees had done in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. Even small children could recite with hate and fear the
horrors  the Yankees had inflicted upon the conquered territory. Already Atlanta was full of refugees from east Tennessee, and the town had heard
firsthand  stories  from them of what suffering they had gone through. In that section, the Confederate sympathizers were in the minority and the
hand  of  war  fell heavily upon them, as it did on all the border states, neighbor informing against neighbor and brother killing brother. These
refugees cried out to see Pennsylvania one solid sheet of flame, and even the gentlest of old ladies wore expressions of grim pleasure.

But  when  the  news  trickled  back that Lee had issued orders that no private property in Pennsylvania should be touched, that looting would be
punished by death and that the army would pay for every article it requisitioned--then it needed all the reverence the General had earned to save
his popularity. Not turn the men loose in the rich storehouses of that prosperous state? What was General Lee thinking of? And our boys so hungry
and needing shoes and clothes and horses!

A  hasty  note  from Darcy Meade to the doctor, the only first-hand information Atlanta received during those first days of July, was passed from
hand to hand, with mounting indignation.

"Pa, could you manage to get me a pair of boots? I've been barefooted for two weeks now and I don't see any prospects of getting another pair. If
I  didn't have such big feet I could get them off dead Yankees like the other boys, but I've never yet found a Yankee whose feet were near as big
as  mine. If you can get me some, don't mail them. Somebody would steal them on the way and I wouldn't blame them. Put Phil on the train and send
him  up  with  them.  I'll  write  you  soon, where we'll be. Right now I don't know, except that we're marching north. We're in Maryland now and
everybody says we're going on into Pennsylvania. . . .

"Pa,  I  thought that we'd give the Yanks a taste of their own medicine but the General says No, and personally I don't care to get shot just for
the  pleasure  of burning some Yank's house. Pa, today we marched through the grandest cornfields you ever saw. We don't have corn like this down
home.  Well,  I must admit we did a bit of private looting in that corn, for we were all pretty hungry and what the General don't know won't hurt
him.  But  that  green  corn didn't do us a bit of good. All the boys have got dysentery anyway, and that corn made it worse. It's easier to walk
with  a  leg  wound  than with dysentery. Pa, do try to manage some boots for me. I'm a captain now and a captain ought to have boots, even if he
hasn't got a new uniform or epaulets."

But the army was in Pennsylvania--that was all that mattered. One more victory and the war would be over, and then Darcy Meade could have all the
boots he wanted, and the boys would come marching home and everybody would be happy again. Mrs. Meade's eyes grew wet as she pictured her soldier
son home at last, home to stay.

On  the  third  of  July, a sudden silence fell on the wires from the north, a silence that lasted till midday of the fourth when fragmentary and
garbled reports began to trickle into headquarters in Atlanta. There had been hard fighting in Pennsylvania, near a little town named Gettysburg,
a  great  battle  with all Lee's army massed. The news was uncertain, slow in coming, for the battle had been fought in the enemy's territory and
the reports came first through Maryland, were relayed to Richmond and then to Atlanta.

Suspense  grew and the beginnings of dread slowly crawled over the town. Nothing was so bad as not knowing what was happening. Families with sons
at  the  front prayed fervently that their boys were not in Pennsylvania, but those who knew their relatives were in the same regiment with Darcy
Meade clamped their teeth and said it was an honor for them to be in the big fight that would lick the Yankees for good and all.

In Aunt Pitty's house, the three women looked into one another's eyes with fear they could not conceal. Ashley was in Darcy's regiment.

On the fifth came evil tidings, not from the North but from the West. Vicksburg had fallen, fallen after a long and bitter siege, and practically
all the Mississippi River, from St. Louis to New Orleans was in the hands of the Yankees. The Confederacy had been cut in two. At any other time,
the  news  of  this  disaster  would have brought fear and lamentation to Atlanta. But now they could give little thought to Vicksburg. They were
thinking  of  Lee  in  Pennsylvania, forcing battle. Vicksburg's loss would be no catastrophe if Lee won in the East. There lay Philadelphia, New
York, Washington. Their capture would paralyze the North and more than cancel off the defeat on the Mississippi.

The  hours  dragged by and the black shadow of calamity brooded over the town, obscuring the hot sun until people looked up startled into the sky
as  if  incredulous  that  it was clear and blue instead of murky and heavy with scudding clouds. Everywhere, women gathered in knots, huddled in
groups  on  front  porches, on sidewalks, even in the middle of the streets, telling each other that no news is good news, trying to comfort each
other, trying to present a brave appearance. But hideous rumors that Lee was killed, the battle lost, and enormous casualty lists coming in, fled
up  and  down the quiet streets like darting bats. Though they tried not to believe, whole neighborhoods, swayed by panic, rushed to town, to the
newspapers, to headquarters, pleading for news, any news, even bad news.

Crowds  formed  at  the  depot,  hoping  for news from incoming trains, at the telegraph office, in front of the harried headquarters, before the
locked  doors  of the newspapers. They were oddly still crowds, crowds that quietly grew larger and larger. There was no talking. Occasionally an
old  man's  treble  voice  begged  for  news,  and  instead of inciting the crowd to babbling it only intensified the hush as they heard the oft-
repeated:  "Nothing on the wires yet from the North except that there's been fighting." The fringe of women on foot and in carriages grew greater
and greater, and the heat of the close-packed bodies and dust rising from restless feet were suffocating. The women did not speak, but their pale
set faces pleaded with a mute eloquence that was louder than wailing.

There  was  hardly a house in town that had not sent away a son, a brother, a father, a lover, a husband, to this battle. They all waited to hear
the  news  that  death  had come to their homes. They expected death. They did not expect defeat. That thought they dismissed. Their men might be
dying,  even now, on the sun-parched grass of the Pennsylvania hills. Even now the Southern ranks might be falling like grain before a hailstorm,
but  the  Cause  for which they fought could never fall. They might be dying in thousands but, like the fruit of the dragon's teeth, thousands of
fresh men in gray and butternut with the Rebel yell on their lips would spring up from the earth to take their places. Where these men would come
from,  no  one  knew.  They only knew, as surely as they knew there was a just and jealous God in Heaven, that Lee was miraculous and the Army of
Virginia invincible.



Scarlett,  Melanie  and  Miss  Pittypat  sat  in  front  of  the Daily Examiner office in the carriage with the top back, sheltered beneath their
parasols.  Scarlett's  hands  shook  so  that her parasol wobbled above her head, Pitty was so excited her nose quivered in her round face like a
rabbit's,  but  Melanie  sat  as though carved of stone, her dark eyes growing larger and larger as time went by. She made only one remark in two
hours,  as  she took a vial of smelling salts from her reticule and handed it to her aunt, the only time she had ever spoken to her, in her whole
life, with anything but tenderest affection.

"Take this, Auntie, and use it if you feel faint. I warn you if you do faint you'll just have to faint and let Uncle Peter take you home, for I'm
not going to leave this place till I hear about--till I hear. And I'm not going to let Scarlett leave me, either."

Scarlett  had  no intention of leaving, no intention of placing herself where she could not have the first news of Ashley. No, even if Miss Pitty
died,  she  wouldn't  leave this spot. Somewhere, Ashley was fighting, perhaps dying, and the newspaper office was the only place where she could
learn the truth.

She  looked  about  the  crowd,  picking out friends and neighbors, Mrs. Meade with her bonnet askew and her arm through that of fifteen-year-old
Phil;  the  Misses McLure trying to make their trembling upper lips cover their buck teeth; Mrs. Elsing, erect as a Spartan mother, betraying her
inner  turmoil  only  by  the  straggling  gray locks that hung from her chignon; and Fanny Elsing white as a ghost. (Surely Fanny wouldn't be so
worried  about her brother Hugh. Had she a real beau at the front that no one suspected?) Mrs. Merriwether sat in her carriage patting Maybelle's
hand.  Maybelle  looked so very pregnant it was a disgrace for her to be out in public, even if she did have her shawl carefully draped over her.
Why  should  she  be  so  worried?  Nobody had heard that the Louisiana troops were in Pennsylvania. Probably her hairy little Zouave was safe in
Richmond this very minute.

There  was  a  movement  on  the  outskirts of the crowd and those on foot gave way as Rhett Butler carefully edged his horse toward Aunt Pitty's
carriage. Scarlett thought: He's got courage, coming here at this time when it wouldn't take anything to make this mob tear him to pieces because
he  isn't  in  uniform.  As he came nearer, she thought she might be the first to rend him. How dared he sit there on that fine horse, in shining
boots  and  handsome  white  linen  suit, so sleek and well fed, smoking an expensive cigar, when Ashley and all the other boys were fighting the
Yankees, barefooted, sweltering in the heat, hungry, their bellies rotten with disease?

Bitter  looks  were  thrown  at him as he came slowly through the press. Old men growled in their beards, and Mrs. Merriwether who feared nothing
rose  slightly in her carriage and said clearly: "Speculator!" in a tone that made the word the foulest and most venomous of epithets. He paid no
heed  to anyone but raised his hat to Melly and Aunt Pitty and, riding to Scarlett's side, leaned down and whispered: "Don't you think this would
be the time for Dr. Meade to give us his familiar speech about victory perching like a screaming eagle on our banners?"

Her nerves taut with suspense, she turned on him as swiftly as an angry cat, hot words bubbling to her lips, but he stopped them with a gesture.

"I came to tell you ladies," he said loudly, "that I have been to headquarters and the first casualty lists are coming in."

At  these  words  a hum rose among those near enough to hear his remark, and the crowd surged, ready to turn and run down Whitehall Street toward
headquarters.

"Don't go," he called, rising in his saddle and holding up his hand. "The lists have been sent to both newspapers and are now being printed. Stay
where you are!"

"Oh, Captain Butler," cried Melly, turning to him with tears in her eyes. "How kind of you to come and tell us! When will they be posted?"

"They should be out any minute, Madam. The reports have been in the offices for half an hour now. The major in charge didn't want to let that out
until the printing was done, for fear the crowd would wreck the offices trying to get news. Ah! Look!"

The  side window of the newspaper office opened and a hand was extended, bearing a sheaf of long narrow galley proofs, smeared with fresh ink and
thick with names closely printed. The crowd fought for them, tearing the slips in half, those obtaining them trying to back out through the crowd
to read, those behind pushing forward, crying: "Let me through!"

"Hold  the  reins," said Rhett shortly, swinging to the ground and tossing the bridle to Uncle Peter. They saw his heavy shoulders towering above
the  crowd as he went through, brutally pushing and shoving. In a while he was back, with half a dozen in his hands. He tossed one to Melanie and
distributed the others among the ladies in the nearest carriages, the Misses McLure, Mrs. Meade, Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Elsing.

"Quick,  Melly,"  cried  Scarlett,  her  heart in her throat, exasperation sweeping her as she saw that Melly's hands were shaking so that it was
impossible for her to read.

"Take  it,"  whispered Melly, and Scarlett snatched it from her. The Ws. Where were the Ws? Oh, there they were at the bottom and all smeared up.
"White,"  she  read  and  her voice shook, "Wilkens . . . Winn . . . Zebulon . . . Oh, Melly, he's not on it! He's not on it! Oh, for God's sake,
Auntie, Melly, pick up the salts! Hold her up, Melly."

Melly,  weeping openly with happiness, steadied Miss Pitty's rolling head and held the smelling salts under her nose. Scarlett braced the fat old
lady on the other side, her heart singing with joy. Ashley was alive. He wasn't even wounded. How good God was to pass him by! How--

She  heard  a  low  moan  and,  turning,  saw  Fanny Elsing lay her head on her mother's bosom, saw the casualty list flutter to the floor of the
carriage, saw Mrs. Elsing's thin lips quiver as she gathered her daughter in her arms and said quietly to the coachman: "Home. Quickly." Scarlett
took  a  quick glance at the lists. Hugh Elsing was not listed. Fanny must have had a beau and now he was dead. The crowd made way in sympathetic
silence for the Elsings' carriage, and after them followed the little wicker pony cart of the McLure girls. Miss Faith was driving, her face like
a  rock,  and  for  once, her teeth were covered by her lips. Miss Hope, death in her face, sat erect beside her, holding her sister's skirt in a
tight  grasp.  They  looked  like very old women. Their young brother Dallas was their darling and the only relative the maiden ladies had in the
world. Dallas was gone.

"Melly!  Melly!"  cried  Maybelle, joy in her voice, "Rene is safe! And Ashley, too! Oh, thank God!" The shawl had slipped from her shoulders and
her  condition  was  most  obvious  but,  for  once, neither she nor Mrs. Merriwether cared. "Oh, Mrs. Meade! Rene--" Her voice changed, swiftly,
"Melly, look!--Mrs. Meade, please! Darcy isn't--?"

Mrs.  Meade  was looking down into her lap and she did not raise her head when her name was called, but the face of little Phil beside her was an
open book that all might read.

"There, there, Mother," he said, helplessly. Mrs. Meade looked up, meeting Melanie's eyes.

"He won't need those boots now," she said.

"Oh, darling!" cried Melly, beginning to sob, as she shoved Aunt Pitty onto Scarlett's shoulder and scrambled out of the carriage and toward that
of the doctor's wife.

"Mother, you've still got me," said Phil, in a forlorn effort at comforting the white-faced woman beside him. "And if you'll just let me, I'll go
kill all the Yank--"

Mrs. Meade clutched his arm as if she would never let it go, said "No!" in a strangled voice and seemed to choke.

"Phil Meade, you hush your mouth!" hissed Melanie, climbing in beside Mrs. Meade and taking her in her arms. "Do you think it'll help your mother
to have you off getting shot too? I never heard anything so silly. Drive us home, quick!"

She turned to Scarlett as Phil picked up the reins.

"As soon as you take Auntie home, come over to Mrs. Meade's. Captain Butler, can you get word to the doctor? He's at the hospital."

The  carriage  moved  off through the dispersing crowd. Some of the women were weeping with joy, but most looked too stunned to realize the heavy
blows  that  had  fallen upon them. Scarlett bent her head over the blurred lists, reading rapidly, to find names of friends. Now that Ashley was
safe she could think of other people. Oh, how long the list was! How heavy the toll from Atlanta, from all of Georgia.

Good  Heavens! "Calvert--Raiford, Lieutenant." Raif! Suddenly she remembered the day, so long ago, when they had run away together but decided to
come home at nightfall because they were hungry and afraid of the dark.

"Fontaine--Joseph K., private." Little bad-tempered Joe! And Sally hardly over having her baby!

"Munroe--LaFayette,  Captain."  And  Lafe  had  been  engaged  to  Cathleen  Calvert. Poor Cathleen! Hers had been a double loss, a brother and a
sweetheart. But Sally's loss was greater--a brother and a husband.

Oh,  this  was  too terrible. She was almost afraid to read further. Aunt Pitty was heaving and sighing on her shoulder and, with small ceremony,
Scarlett pushed her over into a corner of the carriage and continued her reading.

Surely,  surely--there  couldn't be three "Tarleton" names on that list. Perhaps--perhaps the hurried printer had repeated the name by error. But
no. There they were. "Tarleton--Brenton, Lieutenant." "Tarleton--Stuart, Corporal." "Tarleton--Thomas, private." And Boyd, dead the first year of
the  war,  was  buried  God  knew where in Virginia. All the Tarleton boys gone. Tom and the lazy long-legged twins with their love of gossip and
their absurd practical jokes and Boyd who had the grace of a dancing master and the tongue of a wasp.

She could not read any more. She could not know if any other of those boys with whom she had grown up, danced, flirted, kissed were on that list.
She wished that she could cry, do something to ease the iron fingers that were digging into her throat.

"I'm sorry, Scarlett," said Rhett. She looked up at him. She had forgotten he was still there. "Many of your friends?"

She nodded and struggled to speak: "About every family in the County--and all--all three of the Tarleton boys."

His face was quiet, almost somber, and there was no mocking in his eyes.

"And  the  end  is not yet," he said. "These are just the first lists and they're incomplete. There'll be a longer list tomorrow." He lowered his
voice  so  that  those in the near-by carriages could not hear. "Scarlett, General Lee must have lost the battle. I heard at headquarters that he
had retreated back into Maryland."

She  raised  frightened eyes to his, but her fear did not spring from Lee's defeat. Longer casualty lists tomorrow! Tomorrow. She had not thought
of  tomorrow,  so happy was she at first that Ashley's name was not on that list. Tomorrow. Why, right this minute he might be dead and she would
not know it until tomorrow, or perhaps a week from tomorrow.

"Oh,  Rhett,  why do there have to be wars? It would have been so much better for the Yankees to pay for the darkies--or even for us to give them
the darkies free of charge than to have this happen."

"It  isn't  the  darkies, Scarlett. They're just the excuse. There'll always be wars because men love wars. Women don't, but men do--yea, passing
the love of women."

His mouth twisted in his old smile and the seriousness was gone from his face. He lifted his wide Panama hat.

"Good-by.  I'm going to find Dr. Meade. I imagine the irony of me being the one to tell him of his son's death will be lost on him, just now. But
later, he'll probably hate to think that a speculator brought the news of a hero's death."



Scarlett  put  Miss  Pitty  to bed with a toddy, left Prissy and Cookie in attendance and went down the street to the Meade house. Mrs. Meade was
upstairs  with Phil, waiting her husband's return, and Melanie sat in the parlor, talking in a low voice to a group of sympathetic neighbors. She
was  busy  with  needle  and scissors, altering a mourning dress that Mrs. Elsing had lent to Mrs. Meade. Already the house was full of the acrid
smell  of  clothes  boiling in homemade black dye for, in the kitchen, the sobbing cook was stirring all of Mrs. Meade's dresses in the huge wash
pot.

"How is she?" questioned Scarlett softly.

"Not  a  tear," said Melanie. "It's terrible when women can't cry. I don't know how men stand things without crying. I guess it's because they're
stronger and braver than women. She says she's going to Pennsylvania by herself to bring him home. The doctor can't leave the hospital."

"It will be dreadful for her! Why can't Phil go?"

"She's afraid he'll join the army if he gets out of her sight. You know he's so big for his age and they're taking them at sixteen now."

One by one the neighbors slipped away, reluctant to be present when the doctor came home, and Scarlett and Melanie were left alone, sewing in the
parlor.  Melanie  looked  sad  but tranquil, though tears dropped down on the cloth she held in her hands. Evidently she had not thought that the
battle  might  still  be  going  on  and  Ashley perhaps dead at this very moment. With panic in her heart, Scarlett did not know whether to tell
Melanie of Rhett's words and have the dubious comfort of her misery or keep it to herself. Finally she decided to remain quiet. It would never do
for  Melanie  to  think  her too worried about Ashley. She thanked God that everyone, Melly and Pitty included, had been too engrossed in her own
worries that morning to notice her conduct.

After an interval of silent sewing, they heard sounds outside and, peering through the curtains, they saw Dr. Meade alighting from his horse. His
shoulders  were  sagging  and his head bowed until his gray beard spread out fanlike on his chest. He came slowly into the house and, laying down
his  hat  and  bag,  kissed  both  the girls silently. Then he went tiredly up the stairs. In a moment Phil came down, all long legs and arms and
awkwardness.  The two girls looked an invitation to join them, but he went onto the front porch and, seating himself on the top step, dropped his
head on his cupped palm.

Melly sighed.

"He's mad because they won't let him go fight the Yankees. Fifteen years old! Oh, Scarlett, it would be Heaven to have a son like that!"

"And have him get killed," said Scarlett shortly, thinking of Darcy.

"It  would  be  better to have a son even if he did get killed than to never have one," said Melanie and gulped. "You can't understand, Scarlett,
because  you've  got  little Wade, but I-- Oh, Scarlett, I want a baby so bad! I know you think I'm horrid to say it right out, but it's true and
only what every woman wants and you know it."

Scarlett restrained herself from sniffing.

"If  God should will that Ashley should be--taken, I suppose I could bear it, though I'd rather die if he died. But God would give me strength to
bear  it.  But  I could not bear having him dead and not having--not having a child of his to comfort me. Oh, Scarlett, how lucky you are! Though
you lost Charlie, you have his son. And if Ashley goes, I'll have nothing. Scarlett, forgive me, but sometimes I've been so jealous of you--"

"Jealous--of me?" cried Scarlett, stricken with guilt.

"Because you have a son and I haven't. I've even pretended sometimes that Wade was mine because it's so awful not to have a child."

"Fiddle-dee-dee!"  said  Scarlett  in relief. She cast a quick glance at the slight figure with blushing face bent over the sewing. Melanie might
want  children  but  she certainly did not have the figure for bearing them. She was hardly taller than a twelve-year-old child, her hips were as
narrow  as a child's and her breasts were very flat. The very thought of Melanie having a child was repellent to Scarlett. It brought up too many
thoughts  she  couldn't  bear thinking. If Melanie should have a child of Ashley's, it would be as though something were taken from Scarlett that
was her own.

"Do forgive me for saying that about Wade. You know I love him so. You aren't mad at me, are you?"

"Don't be silly," said Scarlett shortly. "And go out on the porch and do something for Phil. He's crying."

Read Part Two of Gone with the Wind.