John had taken in and taken on, even in the few weeks of his absence,
some of that peculiar air of independence which seems to be the spirit
infusing every thing in Texan land. "I can't help it," he said, with
a laugh; "it's in the air; the very winds are full of freedom; they
know nothing will challenge them, and they go roving over the prairies
with a sound like a song."
The Bishop had come back with John, but the Bishop was one of those
old men who, while they gather the wisdom of age, can still keep their
young heart. After supper was over he said: "Phyllis, my daughter,
let them put me a chair and a table under the live oaks by the cabins.
I am going to have a class-meeting there to-night. That will give me
the pleasure of making many hearts glad; and it will give John a couple
of hours to tell you all the wonderful things he is going to do."
And there, two hours afterward, John and Phyllis went to find him.
He was sitting under a great tree, with the servants in little ebony
squads around him at the doors of their white cabins; and singularly
white they looked, under the swaying festoons of gray moss and in the
soft light; for the moon was far up in the zenith, calm and bright
and worshipful. John and Phyllis stood together, listening to his
benediction; Then they walked silently back to the house, wonderfully
touched by the pathos of a little "spiritual" that an old negress
started, and whose whispering minor tones seemed to pervade all the
garden--
"Steal away-steal away!
Steal away to Jesus!"
And in those moments, though not a word was uttered, the hearts of
Phyllis and John were knitted together as no sensuous pleasure of dance
or song could ever have bound them.
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