By this time Mr. Mason had recognized the negro as one he had seen occasionally around the hotel selling vegetables and eggs, and who he had heard the people say was worth his weight in gold.

“How d’ye, Jake,” he said, pleasantly.  “I didn’t know you at first.  Why have you been across the lake twice this morning?”

Jake’s face clouded as he drew his big black hand across his eyes.

“Miss Dory done died at sun up,” he replied.  “You know Miss Dory, in course.”

Mr. Mason was obliged to confess his ignorance with regard to Miss Dory, and asked who she was.

Jake looked disgusted.  Not to know Miss Dory was something inexcusable.

“Why, she’s Miss Dory,” he said, “an’ ole Miss is her granny.  We live up in the palmetto clearing, back in de woods, an’ I take keer of ’em.”

“You mean you belong to Miss Dora’s grandmother?” Mr. Mason asked, while Jake looked more disgusted than ever.

Not to know Miss Dory was bad enough, but not to know who he was was much worse.

“Lor’ bless your soul, Mas’r Mason, I don’t belong to nobody but myself.  I’se done bawn free, I was.  But father belonged to ole Miss Lucy, an’ when my mother died she took keer of me, an’ I’ve lived with her ever sense, all but two or three times I hired out to some swells in Virginny, whar I seen high life.  They’s mighty kine to me, dem folks was, an’ let me learn to read an’ write, an’ do some figgerin’.  I’se most as good a scholar as Miss Dory, an’ I tole her some de big words, an’ what the quality in Virginny does, when she was tryin’ so hard to learn to be a lady.  She’s dead now, the lam’, an’ my cuss be on him as killed her.”

“Killed!  Didn’t she die a natural death?” Mr. Mason asked.

“No, sar.  She jest pined an’ pined for him, an’ got de shakes bad, an’ died this mornin’,” Jake replied, “an’ ole Miss done gone clar out of her head.  She never was over-bright, an’ ’pears like she don’t know nothin’ now.  ‘I leave it to you to do,’ she said, an I’m doin’ on’t the best I kin.  I seen her laid out decent in her best gownd—­that’s Miss Dory—­an’ sent to Palatka for a coffin—­a good one, too—­an’ have been across the lake for Elder Covil to ’tend the burial, ’case she done said, ‘Send for him; he knows.’  But he ain’t thar, an’ I’se come for you.  It’ll be day after to-morrer at one o’clock.”

Mr. Mason felt the water rolling down his back in streams as he thought of a hot drive through the Florida sand and woods, but he could not say no, Jake’s honest face was so anxious and pleading.

“Yes, I’ll come, but how?” he asked.

“Oh, I’ll be hyar wid de mule an’ de shay.  Noon, sharp,” Jake replied.  “Thankee, Mas’r Mason, thankee.  We couldn’t bury Miss Dory without a word of pra’r.  I kin say de Lawd’s, but I want somethin’ about de resurrection an’ de life what I hearn in Virginny.  An’ now I mus’ go ‘long home.  Ole Miss’ll be wantin’ me an’ de chile.”