“I was a fool, and blind, then; but I can see now,” he said to himself, as he looked around at the marks of poverty, or shiftlessness, or both, and contrasted them with his home in the North.

The floor was bare, with the exception of a mat laid before the door leading into another and larger room, before one of the windows of which a white curtain was gently blowing in the wind.  A rough, uncovered table pushed against the wall, three or four chairs, and a hair-cloth settee completed the furniture, with the exception of a low rocking-chair, in which sat huddled and wrapped in a shawl a little old woman whose yellow, wrinkled face told of the snuff habit, and bore a strong resemblance to a mummy, except that the woman wore a cap with a fluted frill, and moved her head up and down like Christmas toys of old men and women.  She was evidently asleep, as she gave no sign of consciousness that any one was there.

“Old Miss,” the stranger said, and his breath again came gaspingly, and Tom Hardy’s advice looked more and more reasonable, while he cursed himself for the fool he had been, and would have given all he was worth, and even half his life, to be rid of this thing weighing him down like a nightmare from which he could not awaken.

He was roused at last by the sound of bare feet on the stairs in a corner of the room.  Some one was coming, and in a moment Mandy Ann stood before him, her eyes shining, and her teeth showing white against the ebony of her skin.  In her rush through the woods Mandy Ann had come upon her young mistress looking for the few berries which grew upon the tangled bushes.

“Miss Dory, Miss Dory!” she exclaimed, clutching the girl’s arm with such force that the pail fell to the ground and the berries were spilled, “you ain’t gwine for ter sell me to nobody?  Say you ain’t, an’ fo’ de Lawd I’ll never touch nothin’, nor lie, nor sass ole Miss, nor make faces and mumble like she does.  I’ll be a fust cut nigger, an’ say my prars ebery night.  I’se done got a new one down ter Jacksonville.  Say you ain’t.”

In her surprise Miss Dory did not at first speak; then, shaking Mandy Ann’s hand from her arm and pushing back her sunbonnet she said:  “What do you mean, and where did you come from?  The ‘Hatty,’ I s’pose, but she must be late.  I’d given you up.  Who’s gwine ter buy yer?”

“Ted done tole me mabby de man on de boat from de Norf, what got on ter Palatka, an’ done as’t the way hyar, might be after me—­an’—­”

She got no further, for her own arm was now clutched as her mistress’s had been, while Miss Dory asked, “What man?  How did he look?  Whar is he?” and her eyes, shining with expectancy, looked eagerly around.

Very rapidly Mandy Ann told all she knew of the stranger, while the girl’s face grew radiant as she listened.  “An’ he done holler and say how he want me an’ follered me, an’ when I turn off at the grave he was still follerin’ me.  He’s comin’ hyar.  You won’t sell me, shoo’,” Mandy Ann said, and her mistress replied, “Sell you?  No.  It was one of Ted’s lies.  He is my friend.  He’s comin’ to see me.  Hurry!”