icked, ticked, ticked, seeming to say
always, "Hurry up, hurry up." And then--it was the longest, longest
while afterward--Ma called from another room that Hopey (it was the
foolish home name) could go and play in the yard now, for it was nine
o'clock.

"Quite half-past, darling," went on the liquid Southern voice, still
tremulous with emotion, still with the yearning anxiety for its own
that the death of any child of kindred age brings to the mother
breast. But there was no answer, and for a very good reason.

Down the long clay road which led from living and now pitying
Fairville to the little cemetery where slept its quiet dead, Hope
Carolina was running.

* * * * *

A mile and a half is a long way for a wee fat maiden to go when the
August sun is beating down upon bare heads and necks, and red clay
roads spread sun-baked ruts and furrows as sharp as knives. As many
times as her years, Hope Carolina fell by the way; oftener, indeed.
But the good folk in the scattered blind-closed houses along the
way--who, too, a half-hour ago had whispered tremulously, "There won't
be a white face"--saw no sign of tears.

"It's only Hope Carolina," called somebody, and other watchers
laughed; for all knew the wandering ways of this wise and fearless
child.

And so, stumbling, falling, struggling to her feet again,--wiping away
blood once, even, with impatient hand,--on, on the little figure in
pink and white had gone, a brave and storm-driven flower in the cruel
road. And at last there were the shining crosses and columns of the
dead. One inclosure, radiant with more magnolias and angel poplars,
more stately and wonderful than all the rest, was the dear Preston
plot.

The child, who had paused anxiously at the open gate, sighed, sighed
with immense relief, to see it still without the sacrilege of Radical
invasion. He hadn't taken _that_, too! Then, a step farther, she
stopped again. The red clayey place he had taken had neither fence nor
flowers. Only a tree grew near his place, a great solitary pine, with
the low wailing of whose softly swaying needles singing was mingled.

A single person was singing--a single _black_ person. She knew by the
soft mellow roll of the voice, the sweet, oh, honey-sweet sound of the
hymn words, which she herself had sung many times at the Baptist
Sunday-school, where she had to go when there was no Episcopal
minister. The great figure towering above the tiny, d