atch for young barbarism. The rush through the gate
brushed me aside like a feather. I saw the tragi-comic parade go by, as
I leaned against a supporting tree: the advance guard of clamorous
urchins, the rail-bearers, the white-faced figure of Plooie, jolted
aloft, bleeding but calm, self-forgetful, and still calling out
reassurances to his wife; the jostling rabble, and upon the edge of it a
frantic woman, clawing, sobbing, imploring. On they swept. I listened
for the splash.

It did not come.

A lion had risen in the path. To be more accurate, a lioness. To my
unsuccessful role of Horatius, a Horatia better fitted for the fray had
succeeded, in the austere and superb person of Madame Rachel Pinckney
Pemberton Tallafferr, aforetime of the sovereign State of Virginia.

Where all my eloquence had failed, she checked that joyously
anticipative rabble by the simple query, set in the chillest and most
peremptory of aristocratic tones, as to what they were doing.

I like to think--the Bonnie Lassie says that I am flattering myself
thereby--that it was the momentary halt caused by my abortive effort to
hold the gate, which gave time for a greater than my humble self to
intervene.

Madame Tallafferr, in the glory of black silk, the Pinckney lace, the
Pemberton diamond, and accompanied by that fat relic of slavery, Black
Sally, had been taking the air genteelly on a bench when the disturbance
grated upon her sensitive ear.

"What is that rabble about, Sally?" she inquired.

The aged negress reconnoitered. "Reckon dey's ridin' a gentmun on a
rail," she reported.

"A _gentleman_, Sally? Impossible. No gentleman would endure such an
affront. Look again."

"Yessum. It's dat po' white trash dey call Plooie. Mainded yo' umbrella
oncet."

"My umbrella-mender!" (The mere fact that the victim had once tinkered
for her a decrepit parasol entitled him in her feudal mind to the high
protection of the Tallafferr tradition.) "Tell them to desist at once."

Apologetically but shrewdly Sally opined that the neighborhood of the
advancing mob was "no place foh a niggah."

With perfect faith in the powers of her superior she added: "You desist
'em, mist'ess."

Sally's confidence in her mistress was equaled or perhaps even excelled
by her mistress's confidence in herself.

Leaning upon her cane and attended by the faithful though terrified
servitor, Madame Tallafferr rustled forward. She took her stand upon the
brink of the foun