Well, I don't know nothin' about imperious Caesar, said Will, patiently, but what I've got is in line with what you've just said about Wade, Miss Melly.

He'll be proud of it some day.

Keep it for Wade.

Don't do that, Scarlett.

'Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,' said Melanie with a sad smile.

Then it'll be good for something.

And I think I'll do it.

We've got three thousand dollars of it in Pa's trunk this minute, and Mammy's after me to let her paste it over the holes in the attic walls so the draft won't get her.

If you think Confederate money is cute, Will, I certainly don't, said Scarlett shortly, for the very sight of Confederate money made her mad.

From it, he drew a Confederate bill.

He fumbled in his back pants pocket and brought out the wallet of calico, stiffened with bark, which Carreen had made him.

When I was over to Fayetteville today, said Will, I found somethin' right cute that I thought would interest you ladies and I brought it home.

And he said frankly that another baby would kill her.

Old Dr. Fontaine diagnosed her trouble as female complaint and concurred with Dr. Meade in saying she should never have had Beau.

She did her share of the work uncomplainingly but she was always ailing.

But happy or depressed, she was too thin, too white.

Since Ashley's letter Melanie had divided her time between glowing, singing happiness and anxious longing.

Melanie joined them on the veranda, the baby in her arms, and spreading an old blanket on the floor, set little Beau down to crawl.

Miss Fine Airs will just have to do without gadding for two weeks, thought Scarlett, and we'll have to put up with her nagging and her bawling.

Suellen never missed the opportunity to leave the plantation and give herself airs among people who did not know she weeded the garden and made beds.

Adorned in the assembled best of the family, she called on old friends, heard all the gossip of the County and felt herself again Miss O'Hara of Tara.

Her greatest joy lay in going to Jonesboro or Fayetteville with Will when he drove over on business.

Suellen would be especially grieved at this.

She gave her approval to the plan of hiring out the horse even though it meant the family would be without any means of transportation temporarily.

He was gravely deferential to the vague Gerald but it was to Scarlett that he turned as the real head of the house.

So Will remained at Tara, for what reason she did not know and she found his businesslike man-to-man attitude with her both pleasant and helpful.

But no, she must spend her time mooning about a silly boy who probably never gave her a serious thought.

If Carreen had any sense of gratitude to me for what I've done for her, she'd marry him and not let him get away from here, Scarlett thought indignantly.

But Carreen, deeper and deeper immersed in her prayer book and every day losing more of her touch with the world of realities, treated Will as gently as a brother and took him as m ...

Men were scarce, girls had to marry someone and Tara had to have a man.

Scarlett knew that Ellen would have fainted at the thought of a daughter of hers marrying such a man, but now Scarlett had been by necessity forced too far away from Ellen's teachi ...

Melanie hotly defended him, saying that anyone who had Will's kind heart and thoughtfulness of others was of gentle birth.

In fact, Scarlett wondered if he could be called a gentleman at all and decided that he couldn't.

He was just plain Cracker, a small farmer, half-educated, prone to grammatical errors and ignorant of some of the finer manners the O'Haras were accustomed to in gentlemen.

He was not of the planter class at all, though he was not poor white.

Of course, before the war, Will would certainly not have been an eligible suitor.

Scarlett would have been eternally grateful to Will, had he asked her for Carreen's hand.

She thought, too, that if Carreen had the sense of a mouse she would see that Will cared for her.

It was so convenient to have a man about the house.

But even with this thought, she would pray fervently that he would remain indefinitely.

Sometimes, she thought that if he were anybody and had any gumption he would go home, even if he no longer had a home.

He said nothing of leaving Tara, and Scarlett was careful not to question him, fearful that he might leave them.

He had gradually slipped into the status of a member of the family and slept on a cot in the little dressing room off Gerald's room.

When the cow had the colic and the horse fell ill with a mysterious ailment which threatened to remove him permanently from them, Will sat up nights with them and saved them.

And he could get work out of Pork, which was, to Scarlett, a marvelous thing.

Though he had only one leg, he could work faster than Pork.

He did them silently, patiently and competently.

He never had much to say, never displayed any energy, never seemed to take much interest in anything that went on about him, but he knew everything about everybody at Tara.

Undoubtedly, as Mammy frequently declared, Will was something the Lord had provided and Scarlett often wondered how Tara could have lived through the last few months without him.

She looked at the lank figure leaning against the porch column, chewing a straw.