"It is a plan filled with difficulties and dangers. What has moved you to contemplate such sacrifices?"

"You, Madame!" The Marquise flushed slightly. "From the time you talked to me I wanted to do something, be something better. But, you know, it seemed no use; there was no need of me anywhere but in Paris. That is all over. I can go now, and I have some information worth taking to the Federal government. The South has commissioners here now. I have learned all they have accomplished, and the people they have interested, so if I had a little help—"

"You shall have it!" declared the Marquise. "I have been dying of ennui. Your plan is a cure for me—better than a room full of courtiers! But if I give you letters it must be to my lawyers in New Orleans—clever, shrewd men—and I should have to trust you entirely, remember."

"I shall not forget, Madame."

"Very good; come tomorrow. What can you do about an establishment such as mine? Ladies maid? Housekeeper? Governess?"

"Any of those; but only governess to very small children."

"Come tomorrow. I shall have planned something by then. I have an engagement in a few minutes, and have no more time today. By the way, have you ever been in Georgia or South Carolina?"

Kora hesitated, and then said: "Yes, Madame."

"Have you any objection to going back there?"

The octoroon looked at her in a startled, suspicious way.

"I hesitate to reply to that, Madame, for reasons! I don't mind telling you, though, that there is one place in America where I might be claimed, if they knew me. I am not anxious to visit that place."

"Naturally! Tomorrow at eleven I will see you, and you can tell me all about it. If I am to act as your protectress I must know all you can tell me—all! It is the only way. I like the mystery and intrigue of the whole affair. It promises new sensations. I will help you show that government that you are willing to help your people. Come tomorrow."

A few days later the Marquise set her new amusement on foot by bidding adieu to a demure, dark eyed, handsome girl, who was garbed most sedately, and whose letters of introduction pronounced her—oh, sentiment or irony of women—Madame Louise Trouvelot, an attache of the Caron establishment, commissioned by the Marquise to inspect the dwellings on the Caron estate in New Orleans, and report as to whether any one of them would be suitable for a residence should the owner desire to visit the city. If none should prove so, Louise Trouvelot, who comprehended entirely the needs of the Marquise, was further commissioned to look up such a residence with a view to purchase, and communicate with the Marquise and with her American lawyers, who were to give assistance to Louise Trouvelot in several business matters, especially relating to her quest.



CHAPTER XI.

ON THE SALKAHATCHIE.

Scarce a leaf quivered on the branches of the magnolias, or a tress of gray-green moss on the cypress boughs. All the world of the Salkahatchie was wrapped in siesta. The white clouds drifting on palest turquoise were the only moving things except the water flowing beneath, and its soft swish against the gunnels of the floating wharf made the only sound.

The plantation home of Loringwood, facing the river, and reached through the avenue of enormous live oaks, looked an enchanted palace touched with the wand of silence.

From the wide stone steps to the wide galleries, with their fluted pillars, not a murmur but the winged insects droning in the tangled grasses, for the wild luxuriance of rose tree and japonica, of lawn and crape myrtle, betrayed a lack of pruning knives in the immediate season past; and to the south, where the rice fields had reached acre beyond acre towards the swamps, there were now scattered patches of feathering young pine, creeping everywhere not forbidden to it by the hand of man.

Spring time and summer time, for almost a century, had been lived through under its sloping, square, dormer-windowed roof. But all the blue sky and brilliant sunshine above could not save it from a suggestion of autumn, and the shadows lengthening along the river were in perfect keeping with the entire picture—a picture of perpetual afternoon.

"Row-lock," "Row-lock," sounded the dip and click of paddles, as a boat swept close to the western bank, where the shadows fell. Two Afro-Americans bent in rhythmic motion—bronze human machines, whose bared arms showed nothing of effort as they sent the boat cutting through the still water.

A middle-aged woman in a voluminous lavender lawn and carrying a parasol of plaid silk-green, with faded pink bars, sat in the after part of the boat, while a slight brown-haired girl just in front amused herself by catching at branches of willows as they passed.

"Evilena, honey, you certainly are like to do yourself a hurt reaching out like that, and if you should go over!"

"But I shan't, Aunt Sajane. Do you reckon I'd risk appearing before Gertrude Loring in a draggled gown just when she has returned from the very heart of the civilized world? Goodness knows, we'll all look dowdy enough to her."

Aunt Sajane (Mistress Sarah Jane Nesbitt) glanced down at her own immaculate lawn, a little faded but daintily laundered, and at her own trim congress-gaitered feet.

"Oh, I didn't mean you," added the girl, laughing softly. "Aunt Sajane, I truly do believe that if you had nothing but gunny sacks for dresses you'd contrive to look as if you'd just come out of a bandbox."

"I'd wear gunny sacks fast enough if it was to help the cause," agreed Aunt Sajane, with a kindly smile. "So would you, honey."

"Honey" trailed her fingers in the waters, amber-tinted from the roots of the cypress trees.

"If a letter from mama comes today we will just miss it."

"Only by a day. Brother Gideon will send it."

"But suppose he's away somewhere on business, or up there at Columbia on state councils or conventions, or whatever they are, as he is just now?"

"Then Pluto will fetch it right over," and she glanced at one of the black men, who showed his teeth for an instant and bent his head in assent.

"Don't see why Judge Clarkson was ever named Gideon," protested the girl. "It's a hard, harsh sort of name, and he's as—as—"

"Soft?" queried the judge's sister, with an accompaniment of easy laughter. The youngest of the two oarsmen grinned. Pluto maintained a well-bred indifference.

"No!" and the girl flung a handful of willow leaves over the lavender lawn. "He is—well—just about right, the judge is; so gentle, so considerate, so altogether magnificent in his language. I've adored him as far back as when he fought the duel with the Northern man who reflected some way on our customs; that was starting a war for his state all alone, before anyone else thought of it, I reckon. I must have been very little then, for I just recollect how he used to let me look in his pockets for candy, and I was awfully afraid of the pistols I thought he must carry there to shoot people with," and she smiled at the childish fancy. "I tell you, Aunt Sajane, if my papa had lived there's just one man I'd like him to favor, and that's our judge. But he didn't, did he?"

"No, he didn't," said Aunt Sajane. "The McVeigh men were all dark, down to Kenneth, and he gets his fairness from your ma." Then she added, kindly, "the judge will be very proud of your admiration."

"Hope he'll care enough about it to hurry right along after us. He does put in a powerful lot of his time in Charleston and Columbia lately," and the tone was one of childish complaint.

"Why, honey, how you suppose our soldier boys would be provided for unless some of the representative men devote their time to the work? It's a consolation to me that Gideon is needed for civil service just now, for if he wasn't he wouldn't be so near home as he is; he'd be somewhere North with a regiment, and I reckon that wouldn't suit you any better."

"No, it wouldn't," agreed the girl, "though I do like a man who will fight, of course. Any girl does."

"Oh, Honey!"

"Yes they do, too. But just now I don't want him either fighting or in legislature. I want him right along with us at Loringwood. If he isn't there to talk to Mr. Loring it won't be possible to have a word alone with Gertrude all the time we stay. How he does depend on her, and what an awful time she must have had all alone with him in Paris while he was at that hospital, or whatever it was."

"Not many girls so faithful as Gertrude Loring," agreed Aunt Sajane. "Not that he has ever shown much affection for her, either, considering she is his own brother's child. But she certainly has shown a Christian sense of duty towards him. Well, you see, they are the only ones left of the family. It's natural, I suppose."

"I would think it natural to run away and leave him, like Aleck and Scip did."

Aunt Sajane cast a warning glance towards the two oarsmen.

"Well, I would," insisted the girl. "I wonder no more of them ran away when they thought he was coming home. How he must have raved! I shouldn't wonder if it prostrated him again. You know old Doctor Allison said it was just a fit of temper caused—"

"Yes, yes, honey; but you know we are to sleep under his roof tonight."

"I'll sleep under Gertrude's half of it," laughed the girl. "It's no use reminding me of my bad manners, Aunt Sajane. But as long as I can remember anyone, I've had two men in my mind. One always grunted at me and told me to take my doll somewhere else or be quiet. That was Kenneth's guardian, Matthew Loring. The other man always had sugar kisses in his pocket for me and gave me my first dog and my only pony. That was Judge Clarkson. You see if my judge had not been so lovely the other would not have seemed so forbidding. It was the contrast did it. I wonder—I wonder if he ever had a sweetheart?"

"Gideon Clarkson? Lots of them," said his sister, promptly.

"I meant Mr. Loring."

"Nonsense, honey, nonsense."

"And nonsense means no," decided the girl. "I thought it would be curious if he had," then an interval of silence, broken only by the dip of the oars. "Gertrude's note said a Paris doctor is with them, a friend of Kenneth and mama. Well, I only hope he isn't a crusty old sweetheartless man. But of course he is if Mr. Loring chose him. I'm wild to know how they got through the blockade. Oh, dear, how I wish it was Ken!"

"I don't suppose you wish it any more than the boy himself," said Aunt Sajane, with a sigh. "There's a good many boys scattered from home, these days, who would be glad to be home again."

"But not unless they gain what they went for," declared the girl in patriotic protest.

The older woman sighed, and said nothing. Her enthusiasms of a year ago had been shrouded by the crape of a mourning land; the glory of conquest would be compensation, perhaps, and would be gained, no doubt. But the price to be paid chilled her and left her without words when Evilena revelled in the glories of the future.

"Loringwood line," said Pluto, motioning towards a great ditch leading straight back from the river.

Evilena shrugged her shoulders with a little pretense of chill, and laughed.

"That is only a reminder of what I used to feel when Gertrude's uncle came to our house. I wonder if this long dress will prevent him from grunting at me or ordering me out of the room if I talk too much."

"Remember, Evilena, he has been an invalid for four years, and is excusable for almost any eccentricity."

"How did you all excuse his eccentricities before he got sick, Aunt Sajane?"

Receiving no reply, the girl comforted herself with the appreciative smile of the oarsmen, who were evidently of her mind as to the planter under discussion, and a mile further they ran the boat through the reeds and lily pads to the little dock at Loringwood.

Mrs. Nesbitt shook out the folds of her crisp lawn, adjusted her bonnet and puffs and sighed, as they walked up the long avenue.

"I can remember when the lily pads never could get a chance to grow there on account of the lot of company always coming in boats," she said, regretfully, "and I've heard that the old Lorings lived like kings here long ago; wild, reckless, magnificent men; not at all like the Lorings now; and oh, my, how the place has been neglected of late. Not a sign of life about the house. Now, in Tom Loring's time—"

They had reached the foot of the steps when the great double doors swung back and a woman appeared on the threshold and inclined her head in greeting.

"Well, Margeret, I am glad to see some one alive," declared Mrs. Nesbitt; "the place is so still."

"Yes; just look at Pluto and Bob," said Evilena, motioning towards the boatmen. "One would think a ghost had met them at the landing, they are so subdued."

The brown eyed, grey haired woman in the door glanced at the two colored men who were following slowly along a path towards the back of the house.

"Yes, Miss Lena, it is quiet," she agreed. "Please step in Mistress Nesbitt. I'll have Raquel show you right up to your rooms, for Miss Loring didn't think you could get here for an hour yet, and she felt obliged to ride over to the north corner, but won't be gone long."

"And Mr. Loring—how is he?"

"Mr. Loring is very much worn out. He's gone asleep now. Doctor says he's not to be seen just yet."

"Oh, yes; the doctor. I'll see him directly after I've rested a little. He speaks English, I hope. Are you coming up, honey?"

"Not yet. I'll keep a lookout for Gertrude."

Margeret had touched a bell and in response a little black girl had appeared, who smiled and ducked her head respectfully.

"Howdy, Miss Sajane? Howdy, Miss Lena?" she exclaimed, her black eyes dancing. "I dunno how come it come, I nevah heerd you all, for I done got—"

"Raquel, you show Mistress Nesbitt to the west room," said the quiet tones of Margeret, and Raquel's animation subsided into wordless grins as she gathered up the sunshade, reticule and other belongings, and preceded Mistress Nesbitt up the stairs.

"If there's anything I can do for you just send Raquel for me."

"Thank you, Margeret. I'll remember."

Margeret crossed the hall to the parlor door and opened it.

"If you'd rather rest in here, Miss Lena—"

"No, no; I'll go look for Gertrude. Don't mind me. I remember all the rooms well enough to make myself at home till she comes."

Margeret inclined her head slightly and moved along the hall to the door of the dining room, which she entered.

Evilena looked after her with a dubious smile in the blue-gray eyes.

"I wonder if I could move as quietly as that even with my feet bare," and she tried walking softly on the polished oak floor, but the heels of her shoes would persist in giving out little clicking sounds as Margeret's had not.

"It's no use. No living person with shoes on could walk silently as that woman. She's just a ghost who—a-gh-gh!"

Her attempt at silent locomotion had brought her to the door of the library, directly opposite the dining room. As she turned to retrace her steps that door suddenly opened and a hand grasped her shoulder.

"Oh, ho! This time I've caught you, have I? you—oh, murder!"

Her half uttered scream had been checked by the sound of a voice which memory told her was not that of her bugbear, the invalid master of the house. It was, instead, a strange gentleman, who was young, and even attractive; whose head was a mass of reddish curls, and whose austere gaze changed quickly to an embarrassed stare as her hat slipped back and he saw her face. The girl was the first to recover herself.

"Yes, you certainly did catch me this time," she gasped.

"My dear young lady, I'm a blundering idiot. I beg your pardon most humbly. I thought it was that Raquel, and I—"

"Oh, Raquel?" and she backed to the opposite wall, regarding him with doubt and question in her eyes.

"Exactly. Allow me to explain. Raquel, in company with some other imps of all shades, have developed an abnormal interest in the unpacking of various boxes today, and especially a galvanic battery in here, which—"

"Battery? In there?" and Evilena raised on her tip-toes to survey the room over his shoulder. "I know some boys of Battery B, but I never saw them without uniforms."

"Uniform, is it? Well, now, you see, I've only been a matter of hours in the country, and small chance to look up a tailor. Are—are they a necessity to the preservation of life here?"

He spoke with a doubtful pretense of timidity, and looked at her quizzically. She smiled, but made a little grimace, a curve of the lips and nod of the head conveying decision.

"You will learn it is the only dress for a man that makes life worth living, for him, around here," she replied. "Every man who is not superannuated or attached to the state government in some way has to wear a uniform unless he wants his loyalty questioned."

The un-uniformed man smiled at her delightful patriotic frankness.

"Faith, now, I've no objection to the questions if you are appointed questioner. But let me get you a chair. Even when on picket duty and challenging each new comer, you are allowed a more restful attitude than your present one, I hope. You startled me into forgetting—"

"I startled you? Well!"

"Oh, yes. I was the one to do the bouncing out and nabbing you, wasn't I? Well, now, I can't believe you were the more frightened of the two, for all that. Have this chair, please; it is the most comfortable. You see, I fancied Raquel had changed under my touch from dusky brown to angelic white. The hat hid your face, you know, until you turned around, and then—"

"Well?" At the first tone of compliment she had forgotten all the strangeness of their meeting, and remembered only the coquetry so naturally her own. With or without the uniform of her country, he was at least a man, and there had been a dearth of men about their plantation, "The Terrace," of late.

"Well," he repeated after her, "when you tipped the hat back I thought in a wink of all the fairy stories of transformation I used to hear told by the old folks in Ireland."

"Do you really mean that you believe fairy stories?" Her tone was severe and her expression chiding.

"On my faith I believed them all that minute."

Her eyes dropped to the toe of her slipper. It was all very delightful, this tete-a-tete with the complimentary unknown, and to be thought a fairy! She wished she had gone up with Aunt Sajane and brushed her hair. Still—

"I was sure it was Mr. Loring who had hold of me until I looked around," she confessed, "and that frightened me just as much as the wickedest fairy or goblin could ever do."

"Indeed, now, would it?"

She glanced around to see if her indiscreet speech had been overheard and then nodded assent.

"Oh, you needn't smile," she protested; and his face at once became comically grave. "You didn't have him for a bug-a-boo when you were little, as I did. That doctor of his gave orders that no one was to see him just now, and I am glad Gertrude will be back before we are admitted. With Gertrude to back me up I could be brave as—as—"

"A sheep," suggested the stranger.

"I was going to say a lion, but lions are big, and I'm not very."

"No, you are not," he agreed. "Sad, isn't it?"

Then they both laughed. She was elated, bubbling over with delight, at meeting some one in Loringwood who actually laughed.

"Gertrude's note last night never told us she had company, and I had gloomy forebodings of Uncle Matthew and Uncle Matthew's doctor, to whom I would not dare speak a word, and the relief of finding real people here is a treat, so please don't mind if I'm silly."

"I shan't—when you are," he agreed, magnanimously. "But pray enlighten me as to why you will be unable to exchange words with the medical stranger? He's no worse a fellow than myself."

"Of course not," she said, with so much fervor that her listener's smile was clearly a compromise with laughter. "But a doctor from Paris! Our old Doctor Allison is pompous and domineering enough, and he never was out of the state, but this one from Europe, he is sure to oppress me with his wonderful knowledge. Indeed, I don't know who he will find to talk to here, now, except Judge Clarkson. The judge will be scholarly enough for him."

"And does he, also, oppress you with his professional knowledge?"

Evilena's laugh rang out clear as a bird's note.

"The Judge? Never! Why I just love him. He is the dearest, best—"

"I see. He's an angel entirely, and no mere mortal from Paris is to be mentioned in the same breath."

"Well, he is everything charming," she insisted. "You would be sure to like him."

"I wish I could be as sure you might change your mind and like the new-comer from Paris."

"Do you? Oh, well, then, I'll certainly try. What is he like, nice?"

"I really can't remember ever having heard any one say so," confessed the stranger, smiling at her.

"Well," and Evilena regarded him with wide, astonished eyes, "no one else likes him, yet you hoped I would. Why, I don't see how—"

The soft quick beat of horse hoofs on the white shelled road interrupted her, or gave opportunity for interrupting herself.

"I hope it's Gertrude. Oh, it is! You dear old darling."

She flounced down the steps, followed by the man, who was becoming a puzzle. He gave his hand to Miss Loring, who accepted that assistance from the horse block, and then he stepped aside that the embrace feminine might have no obstacle in its path.

"My dear little girl," and the mistress of Loringwood kissed her guest with decided fondness. "How good of you to come at once—and Mrs. Nesbitt, too? I'm sorry you had to wait even a little while for a welcome, but I just had to ride over to the quarters, and then to the far fields. Thank you, doctor, for playing host."

"Doctor?" gasped Evilena, gripping Miss Loring's arm. There was a moment of hesitation on the part of all three, when she said, reproachfully, looking at the smiling stranger, "Then it was you all the time?"

"Was there no one here to introduce you?" asked Miss Loring, looking from one to the other. "This is Dr. Delavan, dear, and this, doctor, is Kenneth's sister."

"Thanks. I recognized her at once, and I trust you will forgive me for not introducing myself sooner, mademoiselle, but—well, we had so many other more interesting things to speak of."

Evilena glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, and with her arm about Gertrude walked in silence up the steps. She wanted time to think over what awful things she had said to him, not an easy thing to do, for Evilena said too many things to remember them all.

Margeret was in the hall. Evilena wondered by what occult messages she learned when any one ascended those front steps. She took Miss Loring's riding hat and gloves.

"Mistress Nesbitt is just resting," she said, in those soft even tones. "She left word to call her soon as you got back—she'd come down."

"I'll go up and see her," decided Miss Loring. "Will you excuse us, doctor? And Margeret, have Chloe get us a bit of lunch. We are all a little tired, and it is a long time till supper."

"I have some all ready, Miss Gertrude. Was only waiting till you got back."

"Oh, very well. In five minutes we will be down."

Then, with her arm about Evilena, Miss Loring ascended the wide stairway, where several portraits of vanished Lorings hung, none of them resembling her own face particularly.

She was what the Countess Biron had likened her to when the photograph was shown—a white lily, slender, blonde, with the peculiar and attractive combination of hazel eyes and hair of childish flaxen color. Her features were well formed and a trifle small for her height. She had the manner of a woman perfectly sure of herself, her position and her own importance.

Her voice was very sweet. Sometimes there were high, clear tones in it. Delaven had admired those bell-like intonations until now, when he heard her exchange words with Margeret. All at once the mellow, contralto tones of the serving woman made the voice of the lovely mistress sound metallic—precious metal, to be sure, nothing less than silver. But in contrast was the melody, entirely human, soft, harmonious, alluring as a poet's dream of the tropics.



CHAPTER XII.

"How that child is petted on, Gideon," and Mrs. Nesbitt looked up from her work, the knitting of socks, to be worn by unknown boys in gray. Even the material for them was growing scarce, and she prided herself on always managing, someway, to keep her knitting needles busy. At present she was using a coarse linen or tow thread, over which she lamented because of its harshness.

Miss Loring, who appeared very domestic, with a stack of household linen beside her, glanced up, with a smile.

"Rather fortunate, isn't it, considering—" an arch of the brows and a significant expression were allowed to finish her meaning. Mrs. Nesbitt pursed up her lips and shook her head.

"I really and truly wonder sometimes, Gertrude, if it's going on like this always. Ten years if it's a day since he commenced paying court there, and what she allows to do, at least is more than I can guess."

"Marry him, no doubt," suggested Gertrude, inspecting a sheet carefully, and then proceeding to tear it in widths designated by Dr. Delaven for hospital bandages. "She certainly esteems him very highly."

"Oh, esteem!" and Mrs. Nesbitt's tone was dubious.

"Well, people don't think much of getting married these days, where there is fighting and mourning everywhere."

The older lady gave her a quick glance over the tow yarn rack, but the fair face was very serene, and without a trace of personal feeling on the subject.

"Yes, that's so," she admitted, "but I used to think they were only waiting till Kenneth came of age, or until he graduated. But my! I didn't see it make a spec of difference. They danced together at the party given for him, and smiled, careless as you please, and now the dancing is ended, they keep on friendly and smiling, and I'm downright puzzled to know what they do mean."

"Maybe no more than those two, who are only amusing themselves," said Gertrude, with a glance towards the lawn where Evilena and Delaven were fencing with long stalks of a wild lily they had brought from the swamps, and when Evilena was vanquished by the foe her comforter was a white-haired gentleman, inclined to portliness, and with much more than an inclination to courtliness, whom Evilena called "My Judge."

It was two weeks after the descent of Aunt Sajane and Evilena upon Loringwood. The former, after a long consultation with Dr. Delaven, had returned to her own home, near the McVeigh plantation, and putting her household in order for a more prolonged visit than at first intended, she had come back to be near Gertrude in case—

None of them had put into words to each other their thought as to Matthew Loring's condition, but all understood the seriousness of it, and Gertrude, of course, must not be left alone.

Dr. Delaven had meant only to accompany the invalid home, consult with their local physician, and take his departure after a visit to Mrs. McVeigh, and possibly a sight of their new battlefield beside Kenneth, if his command was not too far away.

Kenneth McVeigh was Col. McVeigh now, to the great delight of the sister, who loved men who could fight. On his return from Paris he had, at his own request, and to the dismay of his family, been sent to the frontier. At the secession of his state he was possessed of a captaincy, which he resigned, returned home, and in six weeks tendered a regiment, fully equipped at his own expense, to the Confederate government. His offer had been accepted and himself made a colonel. His regiment had already seen one year of hard service, were veterans, with a colonel of twenty-five—a colonel who had been carried home wounded unto death, the surgeons said, from the defeat of Fort Donaldson. He had belied their prophecies of death, however, and while not yet equal to the rigors of camp life, he had accepted a commission abroad of decided importance to his government, and became one of the committee to deal with certain English sympathizers who were fitting out vessels for the Confederate navy.

Mrs. McVeigh had been called to Mobile by the serious illness of an aged relative and had been detained by something much less dreary, the marriage of her brother, who had command of a garrison at that point.

Thus barred from seeing either of his former Parisian friends, Delaven would have gone back to Charleston, or else gone North or West to view a new land in battle array.

But Mr. Loring's health, or Miss Loring's entreaties had interfered with both those plans. He could not desert a young lady on an isolated plantation with only the slaves about her, and a partial paralytic to care for, especially when all the most capable physicians were at military posts, and no one absolutely reliable nearer than Charleston.

So he had promised to stay, and had advised Miss Loring to induce Mrs. Nesbitt to remain until a few weeks' rest and the atmosphere of home would, he hoped, have a beneficial influence on the invalid.

All his suggestions had been carried out. Aunt Sajane (who had not a niece or nephew in the world, yet was "aunt" to all the young folks) was to remain, also Evilena, until the return of Mr. McVeigh, after which they all hoped Mr. Loring could be persuaded to move up the river to a smaller estate belonging to Gertrude, adjoining The Terrace, as the nearness of friends would be a great advantage under the circumstances. The isolation of Loringwood had of late become oppressive to its mistress, who strongly advocated its sale. They had enough land without, and she realized it was too large a tract to be managed properly or to profit so long as her uncle was unable to see to affairs personally. But above all else, the loneliness of it was irksome since her return.

"Though we never did use to think Loringwood isolated, did we, Gideon?" asked Mrs. Nesbitt, who remembered the house when full of guests, and the fiddles and banjos of the colored musicians always ready for dance music.

"Relentless circumstances over (he called it ovah, and Delaven delighted in the charming dialect of the South, as illustrated by the Judge) which we have no control have altered conditions through this entire (entiah) commonwealth. But, no. I should not call Loringwood exactly isolated, with the highway of the Salkahatchie at its door."

"But when no one travels the highway?" said Delaven, whose comments had aroused the discussion. "No one but black hunters in log canoes have I seen come along it for a week, barring yourselves. Faith, I should think their presence alone would be enough to give a young lady nervous chills, the daily and nightly fear of insurrection."

The Judge smiled, indulgently, willing to humor the fancies of foreigners, who were not supposed to understand American institutions.

"Your ideas would be perfectly sound, my dear sir, if you were dealing with any other country, where the colored man is the recognized servant of the land and of the land owners. But we of the South, sir, understand their needs and just the proper amount of control necessary to be enforced for mutual protection. They have grown up under that training until it is a part of themselves. There are refractory blacks, of course, just as there are worthless demoralized whites, but I assure you, sir, I voice the sentiments of our people when I state that the families of Southern planters feel much more secure when guarded by their colored folk than they would if surrounded by a troop of Northern soldiery. There have been no cases where white women and children have had reason to regret having trusted to the black man's guardianship, sir. In that respect I believe we Southrons hold a unique place in history. The evils of slavery, perfectly true in many lands, are not true here. The proofs of it are many. Their dependence on each other is mutual. Each understands and respects that fact, sir, and the highest evidence of it is shown when the master marches to meet their common enemy, and leaves his wife and children to the care of the oldest or most intelligent of his bondsmen.

"I tell you, sir, the people of Europe cannot comprehend the ties between those two races, because the world has seen nothing like it. The Northern people have no understanding of it, because, sir, their natures are not such as to call forth such loyalty. They are a cold, unresponsive people, and the only systematic cruelty ever practiced against the colored folks by Americans has been by the New England slavers, sir. The slave trade has always been monopolized by the Northern folks in this country—by the puritanical New Englanders who used to sell the pickaninnies at so much a pound, as cattle or sheep are sold.

"They are no longer able to derive a profit from it, hence their desire to abolish the revenue of the South. I assure you, sir, if the colored man could endure the climate of their bleak land there would be no shouting for abolition."

It was only natural that Delaven should receive a good deal of information those days from the Southern side of the question. Much of it was an added education to him—the perfect honesty of the speakers, the way in which they entered heart and soul into the discussion of their state's rights, the extreme sacrifices offered up, the lives of their sons, the wealth, the luxury in which they had lived, all given up without protest for the cause. Women who had lived and ruled like queens over the wide plantations, were now cutting their living expenses lower and lower, that the extra portion saved might be devoted to their boys at the front. The muslins and linens for household purposes were used as Gertrude Loring was using them now; everything possible was converted into bandages for hospital use.

"I simply don't dare let the house servants do it," she explained, in reply to the Judge's query. "They could do the work, of course, but they never have had to practice economy, and I can't undertake to teach it to them as well as myself, and to both at the same time. Oh, yes, Margeret is capable, of course, but she has her hands full to watch those in the cook house."

Her smile was very bright and contented. It hinted nothing of the straightened circumstances gradually surrounding them, making a close watch in all directions absolutely necessary. Affairs were reaching a stage where money, except in extravagant quantities, was almost useless. The blockade had raised even the most simple articles to the price of luxuries. All possessions, apart from their home productions, must be husbanded to the utmost.

"You are a brave little woman, Miss Gertrude," said the Judge, bowing before her with a certain reverence. "All the battles of this war are not fought to the sound of regimental music, and our boys at the front shoot straighter when they have at home women like you to guard. Our women of the South are an inspiration—an inspiration!"

No courtier of storied Castile could have rivaled the grace of manner with which the praise was spoken, so thought Delaven, for all his mental pictures of Castillian courtesies revealed them as a bit theatrical, while the Judge was sincerity itself.

As he spoke, the soft sound of wheels was heard in the hall, and Matthew Loring, in his invalid chair, was rolled slowly out on the veranda by his man, Ben. Margeret followed with a light robe over her arm, and a fan.

"Not there, Ben," she said, in the low tone of one giving an order entirely personal and not intended to be heard by the others, "the draught does seem to coax itself round that corner, and—"

"Not a bit of it," broke in the master of Loringwood, abruptly. "No more draught there than anywhere else. It's all right, Ben, wheel me to that railing."

Margeret silently spread the robe over his knees, laid the fan in his lap, adjusted the cushion back of his head, and re-entered the house with a slight gesture to Ben, who followed her.

"She's a puzzle entirely," remarked Delaven, who was watching them from the rustic seat nearest the steps. Evilena was seated there, and he stood beside her.

"Margeret? Why?" she asked, in the same low tone.

"I'll tell you. Not thirty minutes ago I told her he could be brought out and have his chair placed so that the sun would be on his limbs, but not on his head. Now, what does she do but pilot him out and discourage him from going to just the corner that was best."

"And you see the result," whispered the girl, who was laughing. "Margeret knows a lot. Just see how satisfied he is, now, the satisfaction of having had to fight some one. If he knew it was anybody's orders, even yours, he would not enjoy that corner half so much. That is the sweet disposition of our Uncle Matthew."

Overhanging eyebrows of iron-gray were the first thing to arrest attention in Matthew Loring's face. They shadowed dark expressive eyes in a swarthy setting. His hair and mustache were of the same grey, and very bushy. He had the broad head and square jaw of the aggressive type. Not a large man, even in his prime, he looked almost frail as he settled back in his chair. He was probably sixty, but looked older.

"Still knitting socks, Mistress Nesbitt?" he inquired, with a caustic smile. "Charming occupation. Do you select that quality and color for any beauties to be found in them? I can remember seeing your mother using knitting needles on this very veranda thirty—yes, forty years ago. But I must say I never saw her make anything heavier than lace. And what's all this, Gertrude? Do you entertain your visitors these days by dragging out the old linen for their inspection? Why are you dallying with the servants' tasks?"

"No; it is my own task, uncle," returned his niece, with unruffled serenity. "Not a very beautiful one, but consoling because of its usefulness."

"Usefulness—huh! In your mother's day ladies were not expected to be useful."

"Alas for us that the day is past," said the girl, tearing off another strip of muslin.

"Now, do you wonder that I adore my Judge?" whispered Evilena to Delaven.



CHAPTER XIII.

Despite his natural irritability, to which no one appeared to pay much attention, Mr. Loring grew almost cordial under the geniality and hopefulness emanating from Judge Clarkson, whom he was really very glad to see, and of whom he had numberless queries to ask regarding the hostilities of the past few months.

The enforced absence abroad had kept him in a highly nervous condition, doing much to counteract the utmost care given him by the most learned specialists of Europe. Half his fortune had been lost by those opening guns at Sumter. His warehouses, piled with great cotton bales for shipment to England, had been fired—burned to the ground. The capture of Beaufort, near which was another plantation of his, had made further wreck for him, financially, and whatever the foreign doctors might to with his body, his mind was back in Carolina, eager, questioning, combative. He was burning himself up with a fever of anxiety.

"It is all of no use, Mademoiselle," said the most distinguished specialist whom she had consulted, "Monsieur, your uncle will live for many years if but the mind is composed—no shocks, no heavy loads to carry. But the mind, you perceive—it is impossible for him to allow himself to be composed away from his country. We have done all that can be done here. To return to his own land under the care of a competent physician, of course, would be now the best arrangement I could suggest. He may live there for many years; here, he will most certainly die."

At Loring's request Dr. Delaven was the physician who had been approached with the proposal to accompany him to Carolina. Why, it would be hard to guess, for they were totally unlike in every way—had not, apparently, a single taste in common. But the physician in charge of the hospital approved his judgment.

"It is a most wise one, Monsieur Loring. Dr. Delaven has shown as his specialty cases similar to your own, and has proven most successful. Withal, he is adventurous. He will enjoy the new country, and he is of your own language. All I could do for you he can do, perhaps more; for I am old, while he is young and alive with enthusiasms with which to supplement his technical knowledge."

Gertrude only delayed their departure long enough to write Col. McVeigh, who was in London. He secured for them transportation to Nassau under the guardianship of an official who would take most extreme care that the party be conveyed from there by some blockade runner to be depended upon. And that the Federal blockade often failed of its purpose was evidenced by the fact that they were quietly landed one night in a little inlet south of Charleston, which they reached by carriage, and rested there a few days before attempting the journey overland.

The doctors were correct as to the beneficial results of the home coming of Loring. It acted like a tonic and the thought of outwitting the Yankees of that blockade pleased him immensely. He never gave a thought to the girl who watched with pale face and sleepless eyes through that dash for the shore. Delaven mentally called him a selfish brute.

The visit of Judge Clarkson was partially an affair of business, but after a private interview with Delaven he decided to dismiss all idea of business settlements until later. Nothing of an annoying or irritating nature must be broached to the convalescent just yet.

The Judge confessed that it was an affair over which Mr. Loring had been deeply chagrined—a clear loss of a large sum of money, and perhaps it would be safer, under the circumstances, to await Col. McVeigh's return. Col. McVeigh was equally interested, and neither he nor the Judge would consent to risk an attack similar to that experienced by Mr. Loring during the bombardment of Port Royal entrance. He was at that time on his Beaufort plantation, where the blue coats overran his place after they landed, and it was known to have been nothing else than a fit of rage at their victory, and rage at the planters who fled on all sides of him, which finally ended in the prostration for which the local physicians could find no remedy. Then it was that Gertrude took him abroad, with the result described. It was understood the prostration had taught him one useful lesson—he no longer cultivated the rages for which he had been locally famous. As he was unable to stamp and roar, he compromised on sneers and caustic retorts, from which he appeared to derive an amount of satisfaction tonical in its effects.

The Judge was giving Delaven the details of the Beaufort affair when Ben wheeled his master into the room. There was an awkward pause, a slight embarrassment, but he had caught the words "Port Royal entrance," and comprehended.

"Huh! Talking over that disaster, Judge?" he remarked. "I tell you what it is, you can't convey to a foreigner anything of the feeling of the South over those misfortunes; to have Sherman's tramps go rough-shod over your lawns and rest themselves with braggadocio at your tables—the most infernal riff-raff—"

"One moment," interposed the Judge, blandly, with a view to check the unpleasant reminiscences. "Did I not hear you actually praise one of those Yankees?—in fact, assert that he was a very fine fellow?"

"Yes, yes; I had forgotten him. A Yankee captain; ordered the blue-coats to the right-about when he found there was only a sick man and a girl there; and more than that, so long as those scavengers were ashore and parading around Beaufort he kept men stationed at my gates for safeguard duty. A fine fellow, for a Yankee. I can only account for it by the fact that he was a West Point graduate, and was thus thrown, to a certain extent, into the society and under the influences of our own men. Kenneth, Col. McVeigh, had known Monroe there—his name was Monroe—Captain John Monroe—at Beaufort his own men called him Captain Jack."

"Just as she was stepping on ship board: 'Your name I'd like to know?' And with a smile she answered him, 'My name is Jack Monroe!'"

sang a fresh voice outside the window, and then the curtain was pushed aside and Evilena's brown head appeared.

"I really could not help that, Mr. Loring," she said, laughingly. "The temptation was too great. Did you never whistle 'Jack Monroe' when you were a boy?"

"No, I can't say I ever did," he replied, testily.

"It's intensely interesting," she continued, seating herself on the window sill and regarding him with smiling interest, made bold by the presence of her champion, the Judge. "Aunt Sajane taught it to me, an old, old sailor song. It's all about her sweetheart, Jack, not Aunt Sajane's sweetheart, but the girl's. Her wealthy relatives separate them by banishing him to the wars somewhere, and she dressed up in boy's clothes to follow him.

"'She went unto a tailor And dressed in men's array, And thence unto a sailor And paid her fare away.'"

recited Evilena, with uplifted finger punctuating the sentences. "Wasn't she brave? Well, she found him, and they were married. There are seven verses of it."

"I—I should think that quite enough," he remarked, dropping his head forward and looking at her from under the overhanging brows. "Do you mean to sing them all to me?"

"Perhaps, some day," she promised, showing all her teeth and dropping the curtain.

"So now this couple's married, Despite their bitter foe, And she's back again in England With her darling, Jack Monroe."

The two visitors laughed outright as this information was wafted to them from the veranda, the old song growing more faint as the singer circled the house in search of Gertrude.

"A true daughter of the South, Dr. Delaven," said the Judge, with a tender cadence betraying how close to his heart was his pride in all Southern excellence—"child and woman in one, sir—a charming combination."

"Right you are, Judge, in that; may their numbers never be less."

Evilena had found Gertrude and at once confessed her daring.

"Don't know how I ever did have courage to pop my head in there. Aunt Sajane—but he talked of Jack Monroe just as I passed the window, and I pretended I thought he meant the old song (I do wonder if he ever—ever sang or whistled?) Then I told him what it was all about, and promised to sing it to him some day, and I know by the sort of smile he had that he wanted to order me out of the room as he used to when I was little."

"Lena, Lena!" and Gertrude shook her head admonishingly at the girl, though she smiled at the recital.

"Oh, you are an angel, Gertrude; so you never have temptations to do things for pure mischief. But I wish you'd tell me who this Jack Monroe is."

"A Federal officer who was of service to us when Beaufort was taken."

"A Yankee!"—and her horror was absolute. "Well, I should not think you'd accept service from such a person."

"Honey!" said Aunt Sajane, in mild chiding.

"We had no choice," said Gertrude, quietly; "afterwards we learned he and Kenneth had been friends at West Point; so he was really a gentleman."

"And in the Yankee Army?" queried the irrepressible. "Good-bye, Jack Monroe, I shan't sing you again."

"You might be faithful to one verse for Gertrude's sake," ventured Aunt Sajane.

"Gertrude's sake?"

"Why, yes; he protected them from the intrusion of the Yankees."

"Oh—h! Aunt Sajane, I really thought you were going to ferret out a romance—a Romeo and Juliet affair—their families at war, and themselves—"

"Evilena!"

"When Gertrude says 'Evilena' in that tone I know it is time to stop," said the girl, letting go the kitten she was patting, and putting her arm around Gertrude. "You dear, sensible Gertrude, don't mind one word I say; of course I did not mean it. Just as if we did not have enough Romeos in our own army to go around."

The significant glance accompanying her words made Gertrude look slightly conscious.

"You are a wildly romantic child," she said, smoothing the chestnut tinted waves of the girl's hair, "and pray, tell us how many of our military Romeos are singing 'Sweet Evilena,' and wearing your colors?"

Dr. Delaven passed along the hall in time to hear this bantering query, and came opposite the door when this true daughter of the South was counting all the fingers of one pretty hand.

"Just make it a half dozen," he suggested, "for I'm wearing yet the sunflower you gave me," and he pointed to the large daisy in his buttonhole.

"No, I'm always honest with Gertrude, and she must have the true number. We are talking of military men, and all others are barred out."

"So you informed me the first day of our acquaintance," he assented, arranging the daisy more to his liking.

"And I've never forgiven you for that first day," she retorted, nodding her head in a way suggestive of some dire punishment waiting for him in the future. "It was dreadful, the way he led me on to say things, Aunt Sajane, for how was I to guess he was the doctor? I was expecting a man like—well, like Dr. Allison, only more so; very learned, very severe, with eye glasses through which he would examine us as though we were new specimens discovered in the wilds of America. I certainly did not expect to find a frivolous person who wore daisies, and—oh!" as she caught a glimpse of some one coming up the path from the landing—"there comes Nelse. Gertrude, can't I have him in here?"

"May I ask if Nelse is one of the five distinguished by your colors?" asked Delaven.

"Nelse is distinguished by his own colors, which is a fine mahogany, and he is the most interesting old reprobate in Carolina—a wizard, if you please—a sure enough voodoo doctor, and the black historian of the Salkahatchie. May I call him?"

"I really do not think uncle likes to have him around," said Gertrude, dubiously; "still—oh, yes, call him if you like. Don't let him tire you with his stories; and keep him out of uncle's way. He would be sure to tell him about those late runaways."

"I promise to stand guard in that case myself, Miss Loring; for I have a prejudice against allowing witch-doctors access to my patients."

Mrs. Nesbitt arose as if to follow Gertrude from the room, hesitated, and resumed her chair.

"When I was a girl we young folks were all half afraid of Nelse—not that he ever harmed any one," she confessed. "The colored folks said he was a wizard, but I never did give credit to that."

"Aunt Chloe, she says he is!"

"Oh, yes; and Aunt Chloe sees ghosts, and talks with goblins, to hear her tell the story; but that old humbug is just as much afraid of a mouse as—as I am."

"Nelse is a free nigger," explained Evilena, turning from the window after having motioned him to enter. "He was made free by his old master, Marmaduke Loring, and the old rascal—I mean Nelse, bought himself a wife, paid for her out of his jockey earnings, and when she proved a disappointment what do you think he did?"

Delaven could not get beyond a guess, as the subject of her discourse had just then appeared in the door.

He was a small, black man, quite old, but with a curious attempt at jauntiness, as he made his three bows with his one hand on his breast, the other holding his cane and a jockey cap of ancient fashion. It contrasted oddly with the swallow-tailed coat he wore, which had evidently been made for a much larger man; the sleeves came to his finger tips, and the tails touched his heels. The cloth of which it was made was very fine dark blue, with buttons of brass. His waistcoat of maroon brocade came half way to his knees. Warm as the day was he wore a broad tie of plaid silk arranged in a bow, above which a white muslin collar rose to his ears. He was evidently an ancient beau of the plantations in court dress.

"Yo' servant, Miss Sajane, Miss Lena; yo' servant, Mahstah," he said with a bow to each. "I done come pay my respects to the family what got back. I'm powerful glad to heah they got safe ovah that ocean."

"Oh, yes; you're very thankful when you wait two whole weeks before you come around to say 'howdy.' Have you moved so far into the swamp you can't even hear when the family comes home? Sit down, you're tired likely. Tell us all the news from your alligator pasture."

"My king! Miss Lena, you jest the same tant'lizin' little lady. Yo' growen' up don't make you outgrow nothen' but yo' clothes. My 'gatah pasture? I show yo' my little patch some o' these days—show yo' what kind 'gatahs pasture theah; why, why, I got 'nigh as many hogs as Mahs Matt has niggahs these days."

"Yes, and he hasn't so many as he did have," remarked Mrs. Nesbitt, significantly. "You know anything about where Scip and Aleck are gone?"

"Who—me? Miss Sajane? You think I keep time on all the runaway boys these days? They too many for me. It sutenly do beat all how they scatter. Yo' all hear tell how one o' Cynthy's boys done run away, too? Suah as I tell you—that second boy, Steve! Ole Mahs Masterson got him dogs out fo' him—tain't no use; nevah touched the track once. He'll nevah stop runnen' till he reach the Nawth an' freeze to death. I alles tole Cynthy that Steve boy a bawn fool."

"Do you mean your son Steve, or your grandson?" queried Mrs. Nesbitt.

"No'm, 'taint little Steve; his mammy got too much sense to let him go; but that gal, Cynthy—humph!" and his disdain of her perceptive powers was very apparent.

"But, Uncle Nelse, just remember Aunt Cynthy must be upwards of seventy. Steve is fifty if he is a day. How do you suppose she could control him, even if she knew of his intention, which is doubtful."

"She nevah would trounce that rascal, even in his youngest days," asserted Nelse, earnestly; "and as the 'bush is bent the tree's declined.' I use to kote that scripper to her many's the day, but how much good it do to plant cotton seed on stony groun' or sow rice on the high lan'? Jes' that much good scripper words done Cynthy, an' no more."

His tone betrayed a sorrowful but impersonal regret over the refractory Cynthia, and their joint offspring. Evilena laughed.

"Where did you get so well acquainted with the scripture, Nelse?" she asked. "I know you never did learn it from your beloved old Mahs Duke Loring. I want you to tell this gentleman all about the old racing days. This is Dr. Delaven (Nelse made a profound bow). He has seen great races abroad and hunted foxes in Ireland. I want you to tell him of the bear hunts, and the horses you used to ride, and how you rode for freedom. The race was so important, Dr. Delaven, that Marmaduke Loring promised Nelse his freedom if he won it, and he had been offered three thousand, five hundred dollars for Nelse, more than once."

"Nevah was worth as much to myself as I was to Mahs Duke," said Nelse, shaking his head. "I tell yo' true, freedom was a sure enough hoodoo, far as I was concerned; nevah seemed to get so much out o' the horses after I was my own man; nevah seemed to see so much money as I owned befo', an' every plum thing I 'vested in was a failure from the start; there was that gal o' Mahs Masterson's—that there Cynthy—"

The old man's garrulity was checked by the noiseless entrance of Margeret. He gave a distinct start as he saw her.

"I—I s'lute yo', Miss Retta," he said, sweeping his cap along the floor and bowing from where he sat. She glanced at him, bent her head slightly in acknowledgment, but did not address him.

"Miss Loring asks to see you in the dining room, Mistress Nesbitt," she said softly; then drawing a blind where the sun was too glaring, and opening another that the breeze might be more apparent, she passed silently out.

The old man never spoke until she disappeared.

"My king!—she get mo' ghost-like every yeah, that Retta," he said, while Evilena gathered up the ball of stocking yard and wound it for Mrs. Nesbitt; "only the eyes o' that woman would tell a body who she is, these days; seems like the very shape o' her face been changed sence she—"

"Nelse," said Mrs. Nesbitt, a trifle sharply, "whatever you do you are not to let Mr. Loring know about those runaways; maybe you better keep out of his sight altogether this visit, for he's sure to ask questions about everything, and the doctor's orders are that he is not to see folks or have any business talks—you understand? and nothing ever does excite him so much as a runaway."

"Oh, yes, Miss Sajane, I un'stan'; I'll keep out. Hearen' how things was I jes' come down to see if Miss Gertrude needs any mo' help looken' after them field niggahs. They nevah run away from me."

"Well"—and she halted doubtfully at the door—"I'll tell her. And if you want Dr. Delaven to hear about the old racing days, honey, hadn't you better take him into the library where the portraits are? I'm a trifle uneasy lest Mr. Loring should take a notion to come in here. Since he's commenced to walk a little he is likely to appear anywhere but in the library. He never does seem to like the library corner."

Delaven glanced at the library walls as the three advanced thereto—walls paneled in natural cedar, and hung with large gilt frames here and there between the cases of books. "I should think any man would like a room like this," he remarked, "especially when it holds one's own family portraits. There is a picture most attractive—a fine make of a man."

"That Mahs Tom Loring, Miss Gertrude's father," explained Nelse. "Jest as fine as he looks theah, Mahs Tom was, and ride!—king in heaven! but he could ride. 'Taint but a little while back since he was killed, twenty yeahs maybe—no, eighteen yeahs come Christmas. He was followen' the houn's, close on, when his horse went down an' Mahs Tom picked up dead, his naik broke. His wife, Miss Leo Masterson, she was, she died some yeahs befo', when Miss Gertrude jest a little missy. So they carried him home from Larue plantation—that wheah he get killed—an' bury him back yonder beside her," and he pointed to a group of pines across the field to the north; "so, after that—"

"Oh, Nelse, tell about live things—not dead ones," suggested Evilena, "tell about the races and your Mahs Duke, how he used to go horseback all the way to Virginia, to the races, and even to Philadelphia, and how all the planters gathered for hundreds of miles, some of the old ones wearing small clothes and buckled shoes, and how—"

"Seems like you done mind them things so well 'taint no use tryen' to rake up the buried reck'lections o' the pas' times," said the old man, rebukingly, and with a certain pomposity. "I reckon now you 'member all the high quality gentlemen. The New Market Jockey Club, an' how they use to meet reg'lar as clock-work the second Tuesday in May and October; an' how my Mahs Duke, with all the fine ruffles down his shirt front, an' his proud walk, an' his voice soft as music, an' his grip hard as steel, was the kingpin o' all the sports—the grandest gentleman out o' Calliny, an' carried his head high as a king ovah all Jerusalem—I reckon you done mind all that theah, Miss Lena."

"I will, next time," laughed the girl, "go on, Nelse, we would rather hear what you remember."

"I don't reckon the names o' the ole time sportin' gentlemen, an' old time jockeys, an' old time stock, would count much with a gentleman from foreign lan's," said the old man, with a deprecating bow to Delaven. "But my Mahs Duke Loring nevah had less than six horses in trainen' at once. I was stable-boy, an' jes' trained up with the colts till Mahs Duke saw I could ride. I sartainly had luck with racin' stock, seein' which he gave me clean charge o' the whole racin' stable; 'sides which, keepen' my weight down to eighty pounds let me in for the jockey work—them was days. I was sent ovah into Kaintucky, an' up Nawth far as Long Island, to ride races fo' otha gentlemen—friends o' Mahs Duke's, an' every big race I run put nigh onto a hundred dollar plump into my own pocket. Money?—my king! I couldn't see cleah how I evah could spend all the money I got them days, cause I didn't have to spend a cent fo' clothes or feed, an' I had mo' presents give to me by the quality folks what I trained horses fer than I could count or reck'lect.

"The ride Miss Lena done tole yo' of—that happen the yeah Mahs Duke imported Lawd Chester, half brother to Bonnie Bell, that won the sweepstakes at Petersburg, an' sire o' Glenalven out o' Lady Clare, who was owned by Mahs Hampton ovah in Kaintucky. Well, sah, the yeah he imported Chester was the yeah he an' Mr. Enos Jackson had the set-to 'bout their two-yeah-olds—leastwise the colts seemed to be the cause; but I don't mind tellen', now, that I nevah did take stock in that notion, my own self. Women folks get mixed up even in race fights an' I mind one o' the han'some high steppers o' Philadelphia way down theah that time, an' Mistah Jackson he got a notion his chances mighty good, till long come Mahs Duke an' glance out corner of his eye, make some fine speeches, an'—farwell, Mistah Jackson! Mistah Jackson wa'nt jes' what you'd call the highest quality, though he did own powerful stretches o' lan'—three plantations in Nawth Calliny, 'sides lots o' other property. He had a colt called Darker he 'lowed nothen' could keep in sight of, an' he was good stuff—that colt. Mistah Jackson would a had easy riden' fo' the stakes if me an' Mahs Duke hadn't fetch Betty Pride up to show 'em what we could do. Well, the upshot of it was that part on account o' that Nawthen flirtatious young pusson what liked Mahs Duke the best, an' part on account o' Betty Pride, Mistah Jackson act mighty mischievous-like, an' twenty minutes afo' time was called I 'scovered that boy, Jim Peters, what was to ride Betty Pride, had been drugged—jest a trifle, not enough to leave him stupid—but too much to leave him ride, bright as he need be that day. He said Mistah Jackson's stable boss had give him a swallow o' apple jack, an' king heaven!—but Mahs Duke turn white mad when I tole him. He say to Jim's brother Mose—Mose was his body servant—'Moses, fetch me my pistols,' jest quiet like that; 'Moses, fetch me my pistols.' Whew!—but I was scared, an' I says, 'No, sah,' I says, 'Mahs Duke, fo' heaven's sake, don't stop the race, an' I'll win it fo' you yet. Mistah Jackson betten nigh bout all he own on Darker; get yo' frien's to take all bets fo' you, an' egg him on. Betty Pride ain't been tampered with!—take my word fo' it, she'll win even with my extra weight—now, Mahs Duke, fo' God's sake,' says I, 'go out theah an' fool them rascals; don't let on you know 'bout their trick; take all theah bets, an' trust me. I trained that colt, an' we'll win, Mahs Duke—if we don't—well, sah, you can jest use them pistols on me.' I mos' got down on my knees a' beggen' him, an' his blue eyes, like steel, measuren' me an' weighen' my words, then he said: 'I'll risk it, Nelse, but—heaven help yo' if yo' fail me!'

"I knew good enough I'd need some powerful help if I come in second, fo' he had a monstrous temper, but kindest man you evah met when things went his way. Well, jest as I was jumpen' into my clothes, an' Mahs Duke had started to the ring, I called out, half joken: 'Oh, Mahs Duke, I'm a dead niggah if I come in second, but what yo' gwine to give me if I come in first?'

"He turned at that an' said, sharp an' quick an' decided—'Yo' freedom, Nelse.' My king!—that made me shaky, I could scarce get into my clothes. I knew he been offered big money fo' me, many's the time, an' now I was gwine to get it all my own self.

"Mahs Duke done jes' like I begged him—kep' steady an' cool an' take up all Mistah Jackson's bets, and he was jest betten wild till he saw who was on Betty Pride, an' I heah tell he come a nigh fainten' when he got sight o' me; but Mahs Duke's look at 'im must a jes' propped him up an' sort o' fo'ced him to brave it out till we come aroun'. It was a sweepstakes an' repeat, an' Betty Pride come in eighteen inches ahead, an' that Nawthen lady what conjure Mistah Jackson so, she fastened roses in Betty Pride's bridle, an' gave me a whole bouquet—with one eye on Mahs Duke all the time, of course, but Lordy!—he wan't thinken' much about ladies jes' that minute. He won ovah thousand dollars in money, 'sides two plantations off Mistah Jackson, who nevah dared enter the jockey club aftah that day. An' Mahs Duke was good as his word 'bout the freedom—he give it to me right theah; that's my Mahs Duke."

"And a fine sort of a man he was, then," commented Delaven, looking more closely at the strong, fine pictured face, and the bushy, leonine shock of tawny hair and the eyes that smiled down with a twinkle of humor in their blue depths. There was a slight likeness to Matthew Loring in the heavy brows and square chin, but the smile of the father was genial—that of the son, sardonic.

"Yes, sah," agreed Nelse, when comment was made upon the likeness, "Mahs Matt favor him a mite, but none to speak of. Mahs Tom more like him in natur'. Mahs Matt he done take mo' likeness to his gran'ma's folks, who was French, from L'weesiana. A mighty sharp eye she got, an' all my Mahs Duke's niggahs walk straight, I tell yo', when she come a visiten' to we all. I heard tell how her mother was some sort o' great lady from French court, packed off to L'weesiana 'cause o' some politics like they have ovah theah; an' in her own country she was a princess or some high mightiness, an' most o' her family was killed in some rebeloution—woman, too! All saved her was getten to Orleans, an' her daughter, she married ole Matthew Loring, the daddy o' them all, so far back as I know."

The old man had warmed to his task, as floods of reminiscences came sweeping through his memory. He grew more important, and let fall the borrowed cloak of servility; his head was perched a little higher and a trifle askew as he surveyed them. The reflected grandeur of past days was on him, and in comparison modernity seemed common-place. All these brilliant, dashing, elegant men and women of his youth were gone. He was the only human echo left of their greatness, and his diminutive person grew more erect as he realized his importance as a landmark of the past.

"There!" said Evilena, triumphantly, "isn't that as interesting as your Irish romances? Where would you find a landlord of England or Ireland who would make a free gift of three thousand dollars to a servant? They simply could not conceive of such generosity unless it were the gift of a king or a prince, and then it would be put down in their histories for all men to remember."

"True for you," assented Delaven, with the brogue he was fond of using at times when with those elected to comradeship; "true for you, my lady, but you folks who are kings and queens in your own right should be a bit easy on the unfortunates who can be only subjects."

"They don't need to be subjects," she insisted; "they could assert their independence just as we did."

"Oh, sometimes it isn't so bad—this being a subject. I've found life rather pleasant down here in the South, where you are all in training for the monarchy you mean to establish. I don't mind being a subject at all, at all, if it's to the right queen."

"But we didn't come in here to talk politics," she said, hastily. "Uncle Nelse, do tell Dr. Delaven about your freedom days, and all. He is a stranger here and wants to learn all about the country and customs. You've traveled, Nelse, so you can tell him a lot."

"Yes, reckon I could. Yes, sah, I done travelled considerable; the onliest advantage I could conjure up in freedom was goen' wherever the fit took me to go—jes' runnen' roun' loose. My king! I got good an' tiahed runnen, I tell yo'. Went cleah out to the Mississippi river, I did—spent all my money, an' started back barefoot, deed I did, an' me worth three thousan' five hundred dollars! Nevah did know how little sense I got till I was free to get myself in trouble if I liked, an' didn't have no Mahs Duke to get me out again. More'n that, seem like I done lost my luck some way—lost races I had no right to lose, till seem like owners they got scary 'bout me, an' when I git far away from my own stamping groun', seem like I wasn't no sort o' use at all. Bye and bye I fell in with Judge Warner, who was a great friend o' Mahs Dukes, and I jes' up an' tells him I done been conjured along o' that freedom Mahs Duke done give me. My king!—how he did laugh. He offered me a good berth down on his place, but I say, 'no, sah; all I want is Mahs Duke an' old Calliny'; so he helps me to some races an' seems like the very notion o' goen' home done fetch me good luck right off, 'cause I made good winnen' on his bay filly, Creole, an' soon as I got some money I bid far'well to wanderen' an' made fo' home.

"I alles spishuned Mahs Duke know mo' 'bout my travels than he let on, fo' he jes' laughed when he see me an' say: 'All right, Nelse, I been looken' fo' you some time. Now if yo' done got yo' fill o' seen' the world, 'spose yo' go down an' look at the new colt I got, an' take yo' ole place in the stable. Yo' jes' got back in time to spruce up the carriage team fo' my wedden'.

"Well, sah, yo' could a' knocked me down with a feathah. Mahs Duke was thirty-five, an' ovah, an' had kep' his own bachelor place fo' ten yeah, loose an' free. Then all at once a new family come down heah from Marylan'. They was the Mastersons, an' a Miss Bar'bra Vaughn come to visit them, an' it was all ovah with Mahs Duke. She jest won in a walk—that little lady.

"An' he done took her all the way to Orleans fo' wedden' trip. I didn't go 'long. I was done tired out with travel an' 'sides that, I'd been riden' ovah an' back to the Masterson plantation fo' Mahs Duke till I took up with a likely brown gal they fetched with them from up Nawth, an' of all niggahs, Nawthen niggahs is the off-scourins o' the yeath—copy aftah theh masters, I reckon, fo' all the real, double-distilled quality folks I met up with in all my travels were gentlemen o' the South, sah. Yes, sah, they may breed good quality somewheahs up theah, but all o' them sent down heah as samples ain't nowhars with the home-bred article, sah.

"But I didn't know all that them days, an' that Cynthy o' Mistah Masterson's look mighty peart an' talk mighty knowen', an' seem like as we both hed travelled considerable we both hed a heap of talk 'bout; an' the upshot of it was I felt boun' an' sot to buy that gal, if so be they'd give me a fair chance an' plenty o' time. Well, sah, I talk it ovah with Mahs Duke, an' he fix it so I can have Cynthy fo' three hundred dollars.

"Seem like it's a mighty small price to ask fo' a likely young gal like her, but I so conjured with the notion o' buyen' her I nevah stopped to study into the reasons why o' things, special as I had part o' the money right by me to pay; a pocket full o' money gets a man into mo' trouble mostly than an empty one.

"Well, sah, I hadn't owned her no time, till I was mo' sot in my mind than evah as how freedom was a hoodoo. If I hadn't been free I'd nevah took the notion to have a free wife o' my own, an' I'd a been saved a lot o' torment, I tell yo'.

"She jest no good no how—that Cynthy. How they got work out o' her ovah on the Masterson plantation I don't know, fo' I couldn't. Think she'd even cook vittels fo' her own self if she could help it? No, sah! She too plum lazy. She jes' had a notion that bein' free meant doen' nothen' 'tall fo' no body. It needed a whole meeten' house full o' religion to get along with that gal, 'thout cussen' at her, an' as I'd done trained in the race course an' not in a pulpit, seem like I noways fit for the 'casion. But I devilled along with her for three yeahs, and she had two boys by that time—didn't make no sort o' difference. She got worse 'stead o' better o' her worthlessness, but I tried to put up with it till she jest put the cap sheaf on the hull business by getten' religion up thah in the gum tree settlement, an' I drew the line at that, I tell yo.' Thah she was, howlen' happy every night in the week 'long-side o' Brother Peter Mosely. Brother Mosely's wife didn't seem to favah their religion no more'n I did; so, seen' as I couldn't follow roun' aftah her with a hickory switch, an' couldn't keep her home or at work no othah way, I just got myself a divorce, an' settled down alone on a patch o' lan' I bought o' Mahs Duke, an' I kep' on looken' aftah his stables long as he kept any. He died just afore young Mahs Tom married Miss Leo Masterson."

"But what of the divorce? Did it improve her religion or cure her laziness?" asked Delaven, who found more of novelty in the black man's affairs than the master's.

"Who—Cinthy? I just sold her right back to Mistah John Masterson fo' twenty-five dollar less than I paid, an' the youngsters they went into the bargain; fo' I tell yo', sah, them Nawthen niggahs is bad stock to manage—if they's big or little; see what happened that Steve o' hern; done run off, he has, an' him ole enough to know bettah. Oh, yes, sah, I up an' I sold the whole batch; that how come I get my money back fo' her, an' stock my little patch o' groun'. Yes, sah, she got scared an' settle down when I done sold her back again. Mahs Masterson he got mo' work out o' her than I could; he knew mo' 'bout managen' them Nawthen niggahs."

"Wouldn't he be a find for those abolitionists?" asked Evilena, laughing. "Nelse, you've been very entertaining, and if your Miss Gertrude needs you to stay about the place we'll steal hours to hear about old times."

"Thanky, Miss Lena; yo' servant, sah; it sartainly does do me good to get in heah an' see all these heah faces again—mighty fine they are. I mind when some o' them was painted. Mahs Duke's was done in Orleans; so was Miss Bar'bra, it's in the parlah. But Mahs Tom—he had an artis' painter come down from Wash'nton to do Miss Gertrude's, once when she just got ovah sick spell—he scared lest she die an' nevah have no likeness; her ma, she died sudden that-a-way. We all use to think it bad luck to get likenesses; I nevah had none; Mahs Matt nevah had none; an' we're a liven' yet. All the rest had 'em took an' wheah are they?"

"Now, Uncle Nelse, you don't mean to say it shortens people's lives to have their picture taken?"

"Don't like to say, Miss Lena, but curious things do happen in this world. That artist man, his name, Mistah Madden, he made Mahs Tom's likeness, an' Mahs Tom got killed! An' all time Mahs Tom's likeness was bein' done, an' all time Miss Gertrude's was a doin', that Mistah Madden he just go 'stracted to paint one o' Retta to take 'way with him. All the niggahs jest begged her not to let him, but she only laughed—she laughed most o' the time them days; an' Mahs Tom he sided with Mistah Madden, so she give consent, an' he painted two—one monstrous big one to take 'way with him, an' then a teeny one fo' a breastpin; he give it to Retta 'cause she set still an' let him make the big one. An' now what happened? Within a yeah Mahs Tom, he was killed, an' Retta Caris, she about died o' some crazy brain fever, an' it was yeahs afore she knew her own name again; yes, went 'wildered like—she did; an' that's what two likenesses done to my sutain knowledge."

"Then I've hoodooed Dr. Delaven, for I made a pencil picture of him only this morning."

"And if I should fall down stairs, or into the Salkahatchie, you will know the primal reason for it."

Old Nelse shook his head at such frivolity.

"Jes' 'cause you all ain't afraid don't take yo' no further off danger," he said, soberly. Then he followed Evilena to the kitchen, where his entrance was greeted with considerable respect. When Nelse appeared at Loringwood in his finest it was a sort of state affair in the cook house. He was an honored guest with the grown folks, because the grandeurs he had witnessed and could tell of, and he was a cause of dread to the pickaninnies who were often threatened with banishment to the Unc. Nelse glade, and they firmly believed he immediately sold all the little darkies who put foot in his domain.

"Isn't he delightfully quaint?" asked the girl, rejoining Delaven. "Gertrude never does seem to find him interesting; but I do. She has been used to him always, of course, and I haven't, and she thinks it was awful for him to sell Cynthia, just because she got religion and would not behave. Now, I think it's funny; don't you?"

"Your historian has given me so many side-lights on slavery that I'm dazzled with the brilliancy of them; whether serious or amusing, it is astonishing."

"Only to strangers," said the girl; "to us they are never puzzling; they are only grown-up children—even the wisest—and need to be managed like children. Those crazy abolitionists should hear Nelse on the 'hoodoo' of freedom; I fancy he would astonish them."

"Not the slightest doubt of it," agreed Delaven, who usually did agree with Evilena—except when argument would prolong a tete-a-tete.



CHAPTER XIV.

Gertrude promptly assured old Nelse that the plantation needed no extra caretakers just then, the work was progressing very well since their return. Nelse swept the jockey cap over his feet in a profound bow, and sauntered around the house. The mistress of Loringwood asked Evilena to see if he had gone to his canoe. She did so, and reported that he had gone direct to the stables, where he had looked carefully over all the horses, and found one threatened with some dangerous ailment requiring his personal ministrations. He had announced his intention of staying right there until that horse was "up an' doin' again." At that minute he was seated on a half bushel measure as on a throne from which he was giving his orders, and all the young niggers were fairly flying to execute them.

"It is no use, Gertrude," said Mrs. Nesbitt, with a sigh; "as soon as I saw that vest and your grandfather's coat with the brass buttons, I knew Nelse had come to stay a spell, and stay he will in spite of us."

Which statement gave the man from Dublin another sidelight on the race question!

One of the servants announced a canoe in sight, coming from up the river, and anticipating a probable addition to their visitors, Delaven escaped by a side door, until the greetings were over, and walking aimlessly along a little path back from the river, found it ended at a group of pines surrounded by an iron railing, enclosing, also, the high, square granite and marble abodes of the dead. It was here Nelse had pointed when telling of Tom Loring's sudden death and burial.

He opened the gate, and as he did so noticed a woman at the other side of the enclosure. Remembering how intensely superstitious the colored folks were said to be, he wondered at one of them coming alone into the grove so nearly darkened by the dense covering of pine, and with only the ghostly white of the tombs surrounding her.

He halted and stood silent beside a tree until she arose and turned towards the gate, then he could see plainly the clear, delicate profile of the silent Margeret. Of all the people he had met in this new country, this quiet, pale woman puzzled him most. She seemed to compel an atmosphere of silence, for no one spoke of her. She moved about like a shadow in the house, but she moved to some purpose, for she was a most efficient housekeeper, even the pickaninnies from the quarters—saucy and mischievous enough with any one else—were subdued when Margeret spoke.

After she had passed out of the gate he went over where he had seen her first. Two tombs were side by side, and of the same pattern; a freshly plucked flower lay on one. He read the name beneath the flower; it was, Thomas Loring, in the thirtieth year of his age; the other tomb was that of his wife, who had died seven years earlier.

But it was on Tom Loring's tomb the blossom had been laid.

Was it merely an accident that it was the marble on which the fragrant bit of red had been let fall? or—

He walked slowly back to the house, feeling that he had touched on some story more strange than any Evilena had asked him to listen to of the old days, and this one was vital, human, fascinating.

He wondered who she was, yet felt a reluctance to ask. To him she appeared a white woman. Yet an intangible something in Miss Loring's manner to her made him doubt. He remembered hearing Matthew Loring on the voyage complain many times that Margeret would have arranged things for his comfort with more foresight than was shown by his attendants, but when he had reached Loringwood, and Margeret gave silent, conscientious care to his wants, there was never a word of praise given her. He—Delaven—felt as if he was the only one there who appreciated her ministrations; the others took them as a matter of course.

He saw old Nelse hitching along, with his queer little walk, coming from the direction of the stables. He motioned to him, and seated himself on a circular bench, backed by a great, live oak, and facing the river. Nelse proved that his sight was good despite his years, for he hastened his irregular shuffle and drew near, cap in hand.

"Did the canoe from up the river bring visitors?" asked Delaven, producing one cigar which he lighted, and another which he presented to the old man, who received it with every evidence of delight.

"I can't even so much as recollect when I done put my hands on one o' these real Cubas; I thank yo' kindly, sah. We all raise our own patches o' tobacco, and smoke it in pipes dry, so! an' in course by that-a-way we 'bleeged to 'spence with the julictious flavor o' the Cubas. No, sah; ain't no visitors; just Mrs. McVeigh's man, Pluto, done fetched some letters and Chloe—Chloe's cook, heah—she tell me she reckon Miss Gertrude try get Mahstah Matt to go up there fo' good 'fore long, fo' Mrs. McVeigh, she comen' home from Mobile right away, now; done sent word. An' Miss Lena, she jest in a jubilee ovah the letter, fo' her ma gwine fotch home some great quality folks a visiten'. Judge Clarkson, he plan to start in the mawnen' for Savannah, he gwine meet 'em there."

"And in the meantime we can enjoy our tobacco; sit down. I've been so much interested in your stories of long ago that I want to ask you about one of the present time."

The smile of Nelse broadened. He felt he was appreciated by Miss Gertrude's guests, even though Miss Gertrude herself was not particularly cordial. He squatted on the grass and waited while Delaven took two or three puffs at his cigar before speaking again.

"Now, in the first place, if there is any objection to answering my question, I expect you to tell me so; you understand?" Nelse nodded solemnly, and Delaven continued:

"I have one of the best nurses here that it has ever been my luck to meet. You spoke of her today as in someway deprived of her senses for a long time. I can't quite understand that, for she appears very intelligent. I should like to know what you meant."

"I reckon o' course the pussen to who you pintedly make reference is Retta," said the old man, after a pause.

"You are the only one I've heard call her that—the rest call her Margeret."

"Humph—yes, sah; that Mahstah Matt's doens, I reckon! not but what Marg'ret alles was her real sure-'nough name, but way back, when Mahstah Tom was a liven', no one evah heard tell o' her been' called any name but Retta; an' seem like it suit her them days, but don't quite suit her now so well."

Delaven made no reply, and after another thoughtful pause, the old man continued:

"No, sah; I've been thinken' it ovah middlen' careful, an' I can't see—considerin' as yo's a doctah, an' a 'special friend o' the family—why I ain't free to tell you Retta's story clean through; an' seen' as yo' have to put a lot o' 'pendance on her 'bout carryen' out you ordahs fo' Mahstah Matt, seems to me like a bounden' duty fo' some one to tell yo', fo' theah was five yeahs—yes—six of 'em, when Retta wasn't a 'nigh this plantation at all. She was stark, raven, crazy—dangerous crazy—an' had to be took away to some 'sylum place; we all nevah knew where; but when she did come back she was jest what you see—jest the ghost of a woman, sensible 'nough, seem like, but I mind the time when she try to kill herself an' her chile, an' how we to know that fit nevah find her again?"

"She—killed her child?"

"Oh, no, sah; we all took the baby; she wan't but five yeah ole, from her, an' got the knife out o' her hands; no, no one got hurt. But I reckon I better go 'way back an' tell yo' the reason."

"Very well; I was wondering if she was really a colored person," remarked Delaven.

"Retta's an octoroon, mahstah," said the old man, with a certain solemnity of tone. "I done heard old Mahstah Jean Larue swear that if folks are reckoned as horses are, Retta'd be counted a thoroughbred, 'cause far back as they can count theah wan't no scrub stock in her pedigree.

"Long 'bout hundred yeahs ago folks come in colony fashion from some islands 'way on other side the sea. They got plantations in Florida, an' Mahs Duke he knew some o' them well. I only rec'lect hearen' one o' the names they was called—an' mighty hard some o' them was to say!—but the one I mind was Andros, or Ambrose Lacaris, an' he was a Greek gentleman; an'—so it was said—Retta was his chile; his nat'ral daughter, as Mahs Larue call it, an' she was raised in his home jest like as ef she gwine to be mistress some day."

Delaven's cigar was forgotten, and its light gone out. The pedigree was more interesting than he had expected. A Greek! All the beauty of the ancient world had come from those islands across the sea. The romances, the poems, the tragedies! and here was one living through a tragedy of today; that flower on the tomb under the pines—it suggested so much, now that he heard what she was.

"Mahs Lacaris, from what I could heah, was much the turn o' my Mahs Duke, but 'thout Mahs Duke's money to back him; an' one day all his business 'rangements, they go smash! an' sheriff come take all his lan' and niggahs fo' some 'surance he'd gone fo' some one. Well, sah, they say he most went 'stracted on head o' that smash up; an' 'special when he found they took stock o' Retta, just like any o' the field hands. But theah wan't no help fo' it, 'cause Retta's mammy was a quadroon gal; jest made a pet o' the chile, an' was so easy goen' he nevah took a thought that anything would ever change his way o' liven'.

"Mahs Tom, he jes' got married to Miss Leo Masterson an' took her down Florida fo' wedden' trip; that how he come to be theah when all Mahs Lacaris' belongings was put up fo' sale. Seem like Mahs Lacaris had hope he could get mo' money back in his own country, an' he was all planned to start, an' he beg Mahs Tom to buy his little Retta an' keep her safe till he come back.

"Now, Mahs Tom was powerful good-hearted—jest like his daddy. So he totes the chile home, an' I know Hester (Miss Leo's maid) was ragen' mad about it, 'cause she had to wait on her the whole enduren' trip home, fo' seem like that chile nevah had been taught to wait on herself.

"Well, sah, Massa Lacaris, he nevah did come back; that ship he went in nevah was heard tell of again from that day to this, an' theah wan't nothin' fo' Mahs Tom to do but jest keep her. He did talk about sendin' her 'way to some school, fo' she mighty peart with books, an' then given' her a chance to buy herself if so be she wanted to. But Miss Leo object to that, flat foot down; she hadn't no sort o' use fo' 'ristocrat book-learned niggahs.

"Hester, she heard Miss Leo say them words, an' was mighty glad to tattle 'em! Hester—she was Maryland stock, same as Cynthy. Well, sah, they worried along fo' 'bout a yeah not deciden' jest what to do with that young stray, then Miss Gertrude she come to town an' it did'n take no time to fine out what to do with her, then!

"Miss Gertrude wan't no 'special stout chile, an' took a heap o' care an' pamperin' an' when none o' the othahs could do a trick with her, Retta would jest walk in, take her in her arms, an' the wah was ended fo' that time! Fust time Mahs Tom see that performance he laugh hearty, an' then he say, 'Retta, we jest find out what we do need you fo'; yo' gwine to be installed as governess at Lorinwood from this time on.' An' Retta she was powerful pleased an' so happy, she alles a laughen' an' her eyes a shinen'.

"Long 'bout a yeah after that, it was, when Miss Leo die. Mahs Tom, he went way then fo' a long spell, cause the place too lonesome, an' when he come back, Retta, she ovah seventeen, an' she jest manage the whole house fine as she manage that baby, an' all the quality folks what come an' go praise her mightily an' talk 'bout how peart she was.

"Then Mahs Matt, he come up from Orleans, whah he been cutten' a wide swath, if all folks told true, an' fust thing his eyes caught was that gal Retta, an' he up an' tole Mahs Tom what a fool he was not to sell her down in Orleans whah she'd fetch mo' money than would buy six nuss gals or housekeepers.

"Mahs Tom cussed at him powerful wicked when he say that! I heard that my own self—it was down at the stable an' I was jest putten' a saddle on fo' Mahs Tom, an' then right in the middle o' his cussin' an' callen' names he stopped short off an' says—says he: 'Don't you evah open youah mouth to me 'bout that again so long as yo' live. If Retta takes care o' my Gertrude till she ten yeahs old, I made up my mine to give her freedom if she want it, that gal wan't bought for no slave an' she ain't gwine to be one heah—yo' un'stan'? You un'stan' if you got any notion o' stayen' at Lorinwood!' An' then with some more mighty uncivil sayen's he got in the saddle an' rode like Jehu, an' I don' reckon Mahs Matt evah did make mention of it again, fo' they got 'long all good 'nough so long as he stayed.

"Well, sah, haven' to take her part a-way made him think mo' 'bout the gal I reckon; anyway he say plain to more'n one that he sure gwine give Retta her freedom.

"He gwine do it jest aftah her chile was bawn, then theah was some law fusses raised 'bout that time consarnnen' Mahstahs freen' slaves, an' Mahs Matt was theah then, an' he not say a word again freen' her, only he say, 'wait a spell, Tom.'

"Retta, she wan't caren' then; she was young an' happy all day long while her chile that was jest as white as Miss Gertrude dar be.

"Things went on that-a-way five yeahs, her chile was five yeahs ole when he start fo' a business visit down to Charleston, an' he say fo' he start that Retta gwine have her freedom papers fo' Christmas gift. Well, sah, he done been gone two weeks in Charleston when he start home, an' then Mahs Larue persuade him to stay ovah night at his plantation fo' a fox hunt in the mawnen'. Mahs Matt was theah, an' some othah friends, so he staid ovah an' next we heard Mahs Matt sent word Mahs Tom killed, an' we all was to be ready to see aftah the relations an' othah quality folks who boun' to come to the funeral.

"An' now, sah, you un'stan' what sort o' shock it was made Retta lose her mind that time. She fainted dead away when she heard it, but then she kind o' pulled herself togethah, as a horse will for a spurt, an' she looked aftah the company an' took Mahs Matt's orders 'bout 'rangements, but we all most scared at the way she look—jest a watching Mahs Matt constant, beggen' him with her eyes to tell her 'bout them freedom papers, but seems like he didn't un'stan', an' when she ask him right out, right 'long side o' dead Mahs Tom, he inform her he nevah heah tell 'bout them freedom papers, Mahs Tom not tole him 'bout them, so she b'long to the 'state o' Loring jest same as she did afore, only now Miss Gertrude owned her 'stead o' Mahs Tom.

"That when she tried to kill herself, an' try to kill the chile; didn't know anybody, she didn't, I tell yo' it make a terrible 'miration 'mongst the quality folks, an' I b'lieve in my soul Mahs Matt would a killed her if he dared, fo' it made all the folks un'stan' jest what he would 'a tried to keep them from.

"An' that, sah, is the whole 'count o' the reason leaden' up to the sickness whah she lost her mine. We all sutten sure Mahs Matt sell her quick if evah her senses done come back, but she really an' truly b'long to Miss Gertrude, an' Miss Gertrude, she couldn't see no good reason to let go the best housekeeper on the plantation, an' that how come she come to stay when she fetched back cured by them doctors. She ain't nevah made a mite o' trouble—jest alles same as yo' see her, but o' course yo' the best judge o' how far to trust her 'bout special medicine an' sech."

"Yes," agreed Delaven, thoughtfully. He arose and walked back and forth several times. Until now he had only come in contact with the pleasant pastoral side of life, given added interest because, just now, all its peace was encircled by war; but it was peace for all that—peace in an eminently Christian land, a land of homes and churchly environment, and made picturesque by the grotesque features and humor of the dark exiles. He had only laughed with them until now and marveled at the gaiety of the troops singing in the rice fields, and suddenly another window had been opened and through it one caught glimpses of tragedies.