“‘You orter have seen her face then.  Every part of it movin’ to oncet, an’ her eyes so bright I could not look at ’em for the quarness thar was in ’em, an’ I’ll never forget her voice as she said, “That can’t be; but, Jakey, you are de noblest man, black or white, I ever seen, an’ my best frien’, an’ I loves you as if you was my brodder.”

“‘Dem’s her very words, an’ I would of sole myself for her if I could.  But de lam gin up after a while.  All de hope an’ life went out of her, an’ she died’ an’ you done ’tended her funeral,—­you ’members it,—­as fust class as I could make it.  I tole you sumptin’ den, but not all this.  It wasn’t a fittin’ time, but seein’ you brings it all back.  Mandy Ann an’ me said we’d keep lil chile a while, bein’ ole Miss was alive, though she was no better than a broomstick dressed in her clothes.  She didn’t know nothin’, not even that Miss Dory was dead, an’ kep’ askin’ whose chile it was,—­ef it was Mandy Ann’s, an’ why it was hyar.  It kinder troubled her, I think, it was so active an’ noisy, an’ sung so much.  Used to play at pra’r meetin’ an’ have de pow’ powerful, as she had seen de blacks have it when Mandy Ann took her to thar meetin’s.  Seems ef she liked thar ways better than what I tried to teach her from de Pra’r Book, an’ they is rather more livelier for a chile.  All de neighbors was interested in her, an’ ole Miss Thomas most of all.  She’s de one what stood out de longest agin Miss Dory, ’case she didn’t tell squar what she’d promised not to.  But she gin in at de funeral, an’ was mighty nice to the lil chile.  When ole Miss Lucy died she comed in her democrat wagon, as she did for Miss Dory, an’ coaxed lil chile inter her lap, an’ said she showed she had good blood, an’ or’to be brung up a lady, an’ it wasn’t fittin’ for her to stay whar she was, an’ if I knew de fader I mus’ write to him.

“‘I knew dat as well as she did, an’ after consultin’ wid Mandy Ann an’ prayin’ for light, it come dat I must sen’ on, an’ I did, hopin’ he wouldn’ come, for to part wid de lil chile was like tearin’ my vitals out, an’ Mandy Ann’s, too.  He did come,—­a big, gran’ man, wid a look which made me glad Miss Dory was in heaven ‘stead of livin’ wid him.  He’d been hyar oncet before.  Mebby I tole you, at de funeral.  My mind gets leaky, an’ I can’t ‘member exactly, an’ so repeats.’

“‘I think not,’ I said, ’and if you did, I have forgotten, and am willing to hear it again.’

“We were sitting now on a bench close by what Jake said had been the little girl’s play-house, which she called her Shady, because it was under a palm tree.

“‘Yes, he comed,’ Jake said, ’two or three weeks after Miss Dory comed home from Georgy, whar she was visitin’ her kin.  Mandy Ann tole me ’bout him,—­how he walked an’ talked to Miss Dory, till when he went away her face was white as the gown she put on when she hearn he was comin’.  You see, Mandy Ann was on de boat wid him, an’ tole her.  She was all of a twitter, like you’ve seen de little hungry birds in de nest when dar mudder is comin’ wid a worm,—­an’ she was jess as cold an’ slimpsy an’ starved when he went away as dem little birds is when de mudder is shot on de wing an’ never comes wid de worm.  You know what I mean.  She s’pected somethin’ an’ didn’t get it.’