So on the first day when her foot had healed enough to stand a slipper, she mounted the Yankee’s horse. One foot in the shortened stirrup and the other leg crooked about the pommel in an approximation of a side saddle, she set out across the fields toward Mimosa, steeling herself to find it burned.
To her surprise and pleasure, she saw the faded yellow-stucco house standing amid the mimosa trees, looking as it had always looked. Warm happiness, happiness that almost brought tears, flooded her when the three Fontaine women came out of the house to welcome her with kisses and cries of joy.
But when the first exclamations of affectionate greeting were over and they all had trooped into the dining room to sit down, Scarlett felt a chill. The Yankees had not reached Mimosa because it was far
