. A black
thunder-cloud of indignation sat upon her brow, and her large black
eyes were lit up with a sarcastic light.

Before Kingsley could collect his thoughts she had passed into the
big door of the main room, amid the whirl and hum of the machinery,
and walking straight to one of the spinning frames, she stooped and
gathered into her arms the beautiful, fair-skinned little girl who
was trying in vain to learn the tiresome lesson of piecing the
ever-breaking threads of the bewildering, whirling bobbins.

The child was taken so by surprise that she screamed in fright--not
being able to hear the footfall or the voice of her who had so
suddenly folded her in her arms and showered kisses on her face and
hair. Then, seeing the face, she shouted:

"It's Mammy Maria--oh, it's my mammy!" and she threw her arms around
the old woman's neck and clung there.

"Mammy's baby--did you think old Mammy dun run off an' lef' her
baby?"

But Lily could only sob for joy.

Then the floor manager came hurriedly over--for the entire force of
the mill had ceased to work, gazing at the strange scene. In vain he
gesticulated his protests--the big fat colored woman walked proudly
past him with Lily in her arms.

In Kingsley's office she stopped to get Lily's bonnet, while the
little girl still clung to her neck, sobbing.

Kingsley stood taking in the scene in astonishment. He adjusted his
eye glasses several times, lilting them with the most pronounced
sarcastic lilt of which he was capable.

He stepped around and around the desk in agitated briskness.

He cleared his throat and jerked his pant legs up and down. And all
the time the fat old woman stood looking at him, with the
thunder-cloud on her brow and unexpressed scorn struggling for speech
in her eyes.

"Ah-hem--ah-ha--Aunt Maria" for Kingsley had caught on to the better
class of Southern ways--"inform me--ah, what does all this mean?"

The old woman drew herself up proudly and replied with freezing
politeness:

"I beg yo' pardon, sah--but I was not awares that I had any nephew
in the mill, or was related to anybody in here, sah. I hav'nt my
visitin' cyard with me, but if I had 'em heah you'd find my
entitlements, on readin', was somethin' lak this: _Miss Maria Conway,
of Zion!_"

Kingsley flushed, rebuked. Then he adjusted his glasses again with
agitated nervous attempts at a lilt. Then he struck his level and
fell back on his natural instinct, unmixed, with attempts