Only the eyes and the droop of the mouth showed signs of past suffering, and these were passing away with a renewal of old scenes and memories.  Jack had found the Rev. Mr. Mason, who received him cordially.

“I was expecting you,” he said.  “A telegram from my son told me you were on the way.  I have not seen Jake, as it was only yesterday I had the despatch.  I have one piece of news, however, for which I am sorry.  Elder Covil died in Virginia soon after the war, and nothing can be learned from him.”

Jack was greatly disappointed.  His hope had been to find Elder Covil, if living, or some trace of him, and that was swept away; but he would not tell Eloise.  She was all eagerness and excitement, and was ready soon after breakfast for the drive to the palmetto clearing, and Amy seemed almost as excited and eager.  Born amid palms and orange trees, and magnolias and negroes, the sight of them brought back the past in a misty kind of way, which was constantly clearing as Eloise helped her to remember.  Of Mr. Mason she of course had no recollection, and shrank from him when presented to him.  He did not tell her he had buried her mother.  He only said he knew Jakey, and was going to take her to him, and they were soon on their way.  The road was very different from the one over which he had been driven behind the white mule, and there were marks of improvement everywhere,—­gardens and fields and cabins with little negroes swarming around the doors, and these, with the palm trees and the orange trees, helped to revive Amy’s memories of the time when she played with the little darkys among the dwarf palmettos and ate oranges in the groves.

In the doorway of one of the small houses a colored woman was standing, looking at the carriage as it passed.  Recognizing Mr. Mason, she gave him a hearty “How d’ye, Mas’r Mason?” to which he responded without telling his companions that it was Mandy Ann.  He wished Amy to see Jake first.

“Here we are,” he said at last.  “This is the clearing; this is the house, and there is Jake himself.”

He pointed to a negro in the distance, and to a small house,—­half log and half frame, for Jake had added to and improved it within a few years.

“I’se gwine to make it ’spectable, so she won’t be ’shamed if she ever comes back to see whar she was bawn,” he had thought, and to him it seemed almost palatial, with its addition, which he called a “linter,” and which consisted of a large room furnished with a most heterogeneous mass of articles gathered here and there as he could afford them.

Conspicuous in one corner was “lil Dory’s cradle,” which had been painted red, with a lettering in white on one side of it, “In memory of lil chile Dory.”  This he had placed in what he called the parlor that morning, after dusting it carefully and putting a fresh pillow case on the scanty pillow where Amy’s head had lain.  He was thinking of her and wondering he did not hear from the Colonel, when the sound of carriage wheels made him look up and start for his house.  Mr. Mason was the first to alight; then Jack; then Eloise; and then Amy, whose senses for a moment left her entirely.