Very slowly she put her own within it.  I noticed that it was still plump, the fine skin not yet withered.

“You are very kind, Major Blake.  I had been misinformed, or you should have had no occasion to think me rude.”

It was then that I wished definitely to shake Miss Caroline.

“Come, come,” I said, “you are not giving me what you gave at first.  I’m not to be put off that way, you know.  If I call you Miss Caroline,—­and I’ve sworn to call you nothing else,—­you must be Miss Caroline.”

She searched my face eagerly,—­then—­

“You shall call me Miss Caroline—­but remember, sir, it makes you my servant.”  She smiled again, without the icy reserve this time, whereat I was glad—­but back of the smile I could see that she felt a bitter homesickness of the new place.

“Your most obedient servant,” I said.  “You have another slave, Miss Caroline, another that refuses manumission—­another bit of personal property, clumsy but willing.”

“Thank you, Major, I need your kindness more than I might seem to need it.  Good night!” and even then she gave me a rose, with the same coquetry, I doubt not, that had once made Colonel Jere Lansdale quick to think of his pistols when another evoked it.  Only now it masked her weariness, her sense of desperate desolation.  I took the rose and kissed her hand.  I left her wilting in the big chair, staring hard into the fireplace that Clem had rilled with summer green things.

When my fellow-chattel appeared next morning with my coffee, he was embarrassed.  With guile he strove to be talkative about matters of no consequence.  But this availed him not.

“Clem,” I said frigidly, “tell me just what you said to Mrs. Lansdale about me.”

He paltered, shifting on his feet, his brow contracted in perplexity, as if I had propounded some intricate trifle of the higher mathematics.

“Huh!  Wha—­what’s that yo’-all is a-sayin’, Mahstah Majah?”

“Stop that, now!  I needn’t tell you twice what I said.  Out with it!”

“Well, seh, Mahstah Majah, of co’se, yo’-all tole me to fix it man own way, an’ Ah lay Ah’d do it raghtly—­an’ so Miss Cahline is ve’y busy goin’ th’oo th’ rooms an’ spressin’ huhse’f how grand evehthing suttinly do look an’ so fothe an’ so on, an’ sh’ ain’t payin’ much attention—­Ah reckon sh’ ain’t huhd raghtly—­”

“Clem—­the Bible says, ‘How forceful are right words!’”

He stopped at my look, despaired, and became succinct.

“Well, seh, Ah jes’ think Ah brek it to huh easy-lahk, by degrees, so Ah sais yo’ is a genaman of wahm South’n lahkings.  Ah sais yo’ been so hot fo’ th’ South all th’oo that theh wah that evehbody yeh’bouts despised an’ reviled you.  An’ she sais why ain’t yo’ gone faght fo’ th’ South ef yo’-all so hot about it, an’ Ah sais yo’ was eageh to go, but yo’ been in the timbeh business, an’ one day yo’ got rash about yo’ saw-mill, an’ th’ ole buzz-saw jes’ natchelly tuk off yo’ ahm, so’s yo’ couldn’t go to th’ wah.  Yes, seh, Mahstah Majah—­Ah laid Ah’d brek it grajally—­an’ Ah suttingly did have that lady a-thinkin’ ve’y highly of yo’ at th’ time of yo’ entrance, seh,—­yes, seh!”