(Seth has appeared from around the left corner of the house and now joins them. )

SETH — That durned nigger cook is allus askin’ me to fetch wood fur her! You’d think I was her slave! That’s what we get fur freein’ ’em! (then briskly ) Wal, come along, folks. I’ll show you the peach orchard and then we’ll go to my greenhouse. I couldn’t find Vinnie. (They are about to start when the front door of the house is opened and Lavinia comes out to the top of the steps where her mother had stood. She is twenty-three but looks considerably older. Tall like her mother, her body is thin, flat-breasted and angular, and its unattractiveness is accentuated by her plain black dress. Her movements are stiff and she carries herself with a wooden, square-shouldered, military bearing. She has a flat dry voice and a habit of snapping out her words like an officer giving orders. But in spite of these dissimilarities, one is immediately struck by her facial resemblance to her mother. She has the same peculiar shade of copper-gold hair, the same pallor and dark violet-blue eyes, the black eyebrows meeting in a straight line above her nose, the same sensual mouth, the same heavy jaw. Above all, one is struck by the same strange, life-like mask impression her face gives in repose. But it is evident Lavinia does all in her power to emphasize the dissimilarity rather than the resemblance to her parent. She wears her hair pulled tightly back, as if to conceal its natural curliness, and there is not a touch of feminine allurement to her severely plain get-up. Her head is the same size as her mother’s , but on her thin body it looks too large and heavy. )

SETH —(seeing her ) There she be now. (He starts for the steps — then sees she has not noticed their presence, and stops and stands waiting, struck by something in her manner. She is looking off right, watching her mother as she strolls through the garden to the greenhouse. Her eyes are bleak and hard with an intense, bitter enmity. Then her mother evidently disappears in the greenhouse, for Lavinia turns her head, still oblivious to Seth and his friends, and looks off left, her attention caught by the band, the music of which, borne on a freshening breeze, has suddenly become louder. It is still playing “John Brown’s Body.” Lavinia listens, as her mother had a moment before, but her reaction is the direct opposite to what her mother’s had been. Her eyes light up with a grim satisfaction, and an expression of strange vindictive triumph comes into her face. )

LOUISA —(in a quick whisper to Minnie ) That’s Lavinia!

MINNIE — She looks like her mother in face — queer lookin’— but she ain’t purty like her.

SETH — You git along to the orchard, folks. I’ll jine you there. (They walk back around the left of the house and disappear. He goes to Lavinia eagerly. ) Say, I got fine news fur you, Vinnie. The telegraph feller says Lee is a goner sure this time! They’re only waitin’ now fur the news to be made official. You can count on your paw comin’ home!

LAVINIA —(grimly ) I hope so. It’s time.

SETH —(with a keen glance at her — slowly ) Ayeh.

LAVINIA —(turning on him sharply ) What do you mean, Seth?

SETH —(avoiding her eyes — evasively ) Nothin’—‘cept what you mean. (Lavinia stares at him. He avoids her eyes — then heavily casual ) Where was you gallivantin’ night afore last and all yesterday?

LAVINIA —(starts ) Over to Hazel and Peter’s house.

SETH — Ayeh. There’s where Hannah said you’d told her you was goin’. That’s funny now —‘cause I seen Peter up-street yesterday and he asked me where you was keepin’ yourself.

LAVINIA —(again starts — then slowly as if admitting a secret understanding between them ) I went to New York, Seth.

SETH — Ayeh.