d erect, and looked around her with very bright
and restless eyes, she seemed quite old; for her face was crossed and
recrossed with a hundred wrinkles, and around the edges of her bonnet
could be seen protruding here and there a tuft of short gray wool. She
wore a blue calico gown of ancient cut, a little red shawl fastened
around her shoulders with an old-fashioned brass brooch, and a large
bonnet profusely ornamented with faded red and yellow artificial
flowers. And she was very black--so black that her toothless gums,
revealed when she opened her mouth to speak, were not red, but blue. She
looked like a bit of the old plantation life, summoned up from the past
by the wave of a magician's wand, as the poet's fancy had called into
being the gracious shapes of which Mr. Ryder had just been reading.

He rose from his chair and came over to where she stood.

"Good-afternoon, madam," he said.

"Good-evenin', suh," she answered, ducking suddenly with a quaint
curtsy. Her voice was shrill and piping, but softened somewhat by age.
"Is dis yere whar Mistuh Ryduh lib, suh?" she asked, looking around her
doubtfully, and glancing into the open windows, through which some of
the preparations for the evening were visible.

"Yes," he replied, with an air of kindly patronage, unconsciously
flattered by her manner, "I am Mr. Ryder. Did you want to see me?"

"Yas, suh, ef I ain't 'sturbin' of you too much."

"Not at all. Have a seat over here behind the vine, where it is cool.
What can I do for you?"

"'Scuse me, suh," she continued, when she had sat down on the edge of
a chair, "'scuse me, suh, I's lookin' for my husban'. I heerd you wuz a
big man an' had libbed heah a long time, an' I 'lowed you wouldn't min'
ef I'd come roun' an' ax you ef you'd eber heerd of a merlatter man by
de name er Sam Taylor 'quirin' roun' in de chu'ches ermongs' de people
fer his wife 'Liza Jane?"

Mr. Ryder seemed to think for a moment.

"There used to be many such cases right after the war," he said, "but it
has been so long that I have forgotten them. There are very few now. But
tell me your story, and it may refresh my memory."

She sat back farther in her chair so as to be more comfortable, and
folded her withered hands in her lap.

"My name's 'Liza," she began, "'Liza Jane. Wen I wuz young I us'ter
b'long ter Marse Bob Smif, down in old Missourn. I wuz bawn down dere.
W'en I wuz a gal I wuz married ter a man named Jim. But Jim died, an'