came to him and put up her hand as Mandy Ann had told her to do.  It was a little soft, fat, baby hand, such as the Colonel had never touched in his life, and he took it and held it a moment, while the old malarious feeling crept over him, and he could have sworn that the thermometer, which, when he left the “Hatty” had stood at seventy-five, had fallen to forty degrees.  As a quietus during the washing, Mandy Ann had suggested that “mabby de gemman done brung somethin’,” and remembering this the little girl at once asked, “Has you done brung me sumptin’?  Mandy Ann tole me so.”

The Colonel’s thermometer dropped lower still at the speech, so decidedly African, and his pride rose up in rebellion, and his heart sank, as in fancy he heard this dialect in his Northern home.  But he must bear it, and when, as he did not at once respond to her question, she said, “Has you done brung me sumptin’?” he was glad he had removed the little ivory book from his watch-chain.  It was something, and he gave it to her, saying, “This is for you—­a little book.  Do you know what a book is?”

She was examining the ornament on the back of which was carved a miniature bar of music, with three or four notes.  The child had seen written music in a hymn-book, which belonged to her mother, and from which she had often pretended to sing, when she played at a funeral, or prayer meeting, as she sometimes did under the shady.  Jake had not spoken of this habit to the Colonel.  He was waiting to take him to the graves, and the play-house near them, and he was watching the child as she examined the carving.  Lifting up her bright eyes to the Colonel, she said, “Moosich—­me sing,” and a burst of childish song rang through the room—­part of a negro melody, and “Me wants to be an angel” alternating in a kind of melody, to which the Colonel listened in wonder.

“Me done sing dood,” she said, and her eyes shone and flashed, and her bosom rose and fell, as if she were standing before an audience, sure of success and applause.

Jake did clap his hands when she finished, and said to the Colonel, “She done goes on dat way very often.  She’s wonderful wid her voice an’ eyes.  ’Specs she’ll make a singer.  She’s a little quar—­dem Harrises—­”

Here he stopped suddenly, and asked, “Is you cole?” as he saw the Colonel shiver.  He knew the Harrises were quar, and this dark-haired, dark-eyed child singing in a shrill, high-pitched, but very sweet voice, seemed to him uncanny, and he shrank from her as she said.  “Me sing some mo’.”

Jake now interfered, saying, “No, honey; we’re gwine to yer mother’s grave.”

“Me go, too,” the child answered, slipping her hand into the Colonel’s and leading the way to a little enclosure where the Harrises were buried.

The Colonel felt quar with that hand holding his so tight, and the child hippy-ty-hopping by his side over the boards Jake had put down for a walk to the graveyard.