was the reply. "I'll be glad if you will."

Sophy followed the teacher at a respectful distance. When they reached
Miss Myrover's home Sophy carried the bundle to the doorstep, where Miss
Myrover took it and thanked her.

Mrs. Myrover came out on the piazza as Sophy was moving away. She said,
in the child's hearing, and perhaps with the intention that she should
hear: "Mary, I wish you wouldn't let those little darkies follow you
to the house. I don't want them in the yard. I should think you'd have
enough of them all day."

"Very well, mother," replied her daughter. "I won't bring any more of
them. The child was only doing me a favor."

Mrs. Myrover was an invalid, and opposition or irritation of any kind
brought on nervous paroxysms that made her miserable, and made life a
burden to the rest of the household; so that Mary seldom crossed her
whims. She did not bring Sophy to the house again, nor did Sophy again
offer her services as porter.

One day in spring Sophy brought her teacher a bouquet of yellow roses.

"Dey come off'n my own bush, Miss Ma'y," she said proudly, "an' I didn'
let nobody e'se pull 'em, but saved 'em all fer you, 'cause I know you
likes roses so much. I'm gwine bring 'em all ter you as long as dey
las'."

"Thank you, Sophy," said the teacher; "you are a very good girl."

For another year Mary Myrover taught the colored school, and did
excellent service. The children made rapid progress under her tuition,
and learned to love her well; for they saw and appreciated, as well as
children could, her fidelity to a trust that she might have slighted, as
some others did, without much fear of criticism. Toward the end of her
second year she sickened, and after a brief illness died.

Old Mrs. Myrover was inconsolable. She ascribed her daughter's death
to her labors as teacher of negro children. Just how the color of the
pupils had produced the fatal effects she did not stop to explain. But
she was too old, and had suffered too deeply from the war, in body
and mind and estate, ever to reconcile herself to the changed order
of things following the return of peace; and with an unsound yet not
unnatural logic, she visited some of her displeasure upon those who had
profited most, though passively, by her losses.

"I always feared something would happen to Mary," she said. "It seemed
unnatural for her to be wearing herself out teaching little negroes who
ought to have been working for her. But the worl