tant. He'll tell you all about it if you're mighty
perlite. Folks is got so they has to be mighty perlite to niggers sence
the war. Yit I'll not deny that it's easy to be perlite to old Uncle
Prince, bekaze he's mighty perlite hisself. He's what I call a high-bred
nigger." Mrs. Haley said this with an air of pride, as if she were in
some measure responsible for Uncle Prince's good breeding.

V

IT came to pass that Helen Eustis and her aunt lost the sense of
loneliness which they had found so oppressive during the first weeks of
their visit. In the people about them they found a never-failing fund of
entertainment. They found in the climate, too, a source of health and
strength. The resinous odor of the pines was always in their nostrils;
the far, faint undertones of music the winds made in the trees were
always in their ears. The provinciality of the people, which some of the
political correspondents describe as distressing, was so genuinely
American in all its forms and manifestations that these Boston women
were enabled to draw from it, now and then, a whiff of New England air.
They recognized characteristics that made them feel thoroughly at home.
Perhaps, so far as Helen was concerned, there were other reasons that
reconciled her to her surroundings. At any rate, she was reconciled.
More than this, she was happy. Her eyes sparkled, and the roses of
health bloomed on her cheeks. All her movements were tributes to the
buoyancy and energy of her nature. The little rector found out what this
energy amounted to, when, on one occasion, he proposed to accompany her
on one of her walks. It was a five-mile excursion; and he returned, as
Mrs. Haley expressed it, "a used-up man."

One morning, just before Christmas, the Waverly carriage, driven in
great state by Uncle Prince, drew up in front of the tavern; and in a
few moments Helen and her aunt were given to understand that they had
been sent for, in furtherance of an invitation they had accepted, to
spend the holidays at Waverly.

"Ole Miss would 'a' come," said Uncle Prince, with a hospitable chuckle,
"but she sorter ailin'; en Miss Hallie, she dat busy dat she ain't
skacely got time fer ter tu'n 'roun'; so dey tuck'n sort atter you,
ma'am, des like you wuz home folks."

The preparations of the ladies had already been made, and it was not
long before they were swinging along under the green pines in the
old-fashioned vehicle. Nor was it long before they passed from