Mr. Mason made no reply.  He was thinking of Dory, and beginning to feel a good deal of interest in her and her story, and anxious to see her, even if she were dead.  At precisely twelve o’clock on the day appointed for the funeral Jake drove his white mule and shay to the door of the Brock House.  He had on his Sunday clothes, and around his tall hat was a band of black alpaca, the nearest approach to mourning he could get, for crape was out of the question.  If possible, it was hotter than on the previous day, and the sail cloth top was not much protection from the sun as they drove along the sandy road, over bogs and stumps, palmetto roots and low bridges, and across brooks nearly dried up by the heat.  The way seemed interminable to Mr. Mason, for the mule was not very swift-footed, and Jake was too fond of him to touch him with a whip.  A pull at the lines, which were bits of rope, and a “Go ’long dar, you lazy ole t’ing, ’fore I takes the hide off’n you” was the most he did to urge the animal forward, and Mr. Mason was beginning to think he might get on faster by walking, when a turn in the road brought the clearing in view.

It had improved some since we first saw it, and was under what the natives called right smart cultivation for such a place.  Jake had worked early and late to make it attractive for his young mistress.  He had given the log-house a coat of whitewash, and planted more climbing roses than had been there when the man from the North visited it.  A rude fence of twisted poles had been built around it, and standing before this fence were three or four ox-carts and a democrat wagon with two mules attached to it.  The people who had come in these vehicles were waiting expectantly for Jake and the minister, and the moment they appeared in sight the white portion hurried into the house and seated themselves—­some in the few chairs the room contained, some on the table, and some on the long bench Jake had improvised with a board and two boxes, and which threatened every moment to topple over.  There were a number of old women with sunbonnets on their heads—­two or three higher-toned ones with straw bonnets—­a few younger ones with hats, while the men and boys were all in their shirt sleeves.  Some of them had come miles that hot day to pay their last respects to Miss Dory, who, in the room adjoining where they sat, lay in her coffin, clad, as Jake had said, in her best gown, the white one she had worn with so much pride the day the stranger came.  She had never worn it since, but had said to Mandy Ann a few days before she died, “I should like to be buried in it, if you can smarten it up.”  And Mandy Ann who understood, had done her best at smartening, and when Sonsie and others said it was “yaller as saffern, an’ not fittin’ for a buryin’,” she had washed and ironed it, roughly, it is true, but it was white and clean, and Sonsie was satisfied.  Mandy Ann had tried to freshen the satin bows, but gave it up, and put in their place bunches of wild