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swamps and beat them for straying hogs and chickens, go to Jonesboro and Lovejoy with Ellen’s jewelry―there must be someone left there who would sell something to eat. Tomorrow―tomorrow―her brain ticked slowly and more slowly, like a clock running down, but the clarity of vision persisted.
　Of a sudden, the oft-told family tales to which she had listened since babyhood, listened half-bored, impatient and but partly comprehending, were crystal clear. Gerald, penniless, had raised Tara; Ellen had risen above some mysterious sorrow; Grandfather Robillard. surviving the wreck of Napoleon’s throne, had founded his fortunes anew on the fertile Georgia coast; Great-grandfather Prudhomme had carved a small kingdom out of the dark jungles of Haiti, lost it, and lived to see his name honored in Savannah. There were the Scarletts who had fought with the Irish Volunteers for a free Ireland and been hanged for their pains and the O’Haras who died at the Boyne, battling to the end for what was theirs.
　All had suffered crushing misfortunes and had not been crushed. They had not been broken by the crash of empires, the machetes of revolting slaves, war, rebellion, proscription, confiscation. Malign fate had broken their necks, perhaps, but never their hearts. They had not whined,mbt shoes sale, they had fought. And when they died, they died spent but unquenched. All of those shadowy folks whose blood flowed in her veins seemed to move quietly in the moonlit room. And Scarlett was not surprised to see them, these kinsmen who had taken the worst that fate could send and hammered it into the best. Tara was her fate, her fight, and she must conquer it.
　She turned drowsily on her side, a slow creeping blackness enveloping her mind. Were they really there, whispering wordless encouragement to her,mbt clearance, or was this part of her dream?
　“Whether you are there or not,” she murmured sleepily,mbt shoes, “good night―and thank you.”
　
　CHAPTER XXV
　THE NEXT MORNING Scarlett’s body was so stiff and sore from the long miles of walking and jolting in the wag