They left the village behind and turned into the red road to Tara. A faint pink still lingered about the edges of the sky and fat feathery clouds were tinged with gold and palest green. The stillness of the country twilight came down about them as calming as a prayer. How had she ever borne it, she thought, away for all these months, away from the fresh smell of country air, the ploughed earth and the sweetness of summer nights The moist red earth smelled so good, so familiar, so friendly, she wanted to get out and scoop up a handful. Above their heads a flock of chimney swallows whirled suddenly on swift wings and now and then a rabbit scurried startled across the road, his white tail bobbing like an eiderdown powder-puff. She saw with pleasure that the cotton stood well as they passed between ploughed fields where the green bushes reared themselves sturdily out of the red earth. How beautiful all this was! The soft grey mist in the swampy bottoms, the red earth and growing cotton, the sloping fields with curving green rows and the black pines rising behind everything like sable wails. How had she ever stayed in Atlanta so long