fore Uncle Noah
had quite time to adjust himself to the joy of his unique sale the girl
thrust a roll of bills into his hands and disappeared through the
station door.

IV

Christmas Intrigue

IV

Uncle Noah hobbled after her. His new mistress had quite forgotten to
tell him where to deliver himself when his Christmas with the Colonel
was over. But when he reached the door she was eagerly greeting a man
who had just alighted from a waiting carriage. Uncle Noah could but
dimly see him, but as the genial voice reached his ears he halted in
the shadow quite content. It was Major Verney. The fact that the
Colonel's old friend and neighbor had driven in from Fernlands to meet
the radiant lady whose great gray eyes, Uncle Noah now recalled, had
had the Verney look which endeared the owner of Fernlands to all who
knew him, seemed to the watching negro a direct interposition of
Providence. A scant mile of cottonfields lay between the two
plantations, and, Christmas over, Uncle Noah had but to trudge across
the fields to deliver himself to the Major's guest.

"And, Ruth," concluded Major Verney in laughing reprimand, "you have
kept me waiting. Why, child, the Northern Express came in fifteen
minutes ago."

Uncle Noah did not catch the girl's reply as Major Verney assisted her
into the carriage and they drove rapidly away.

The old darky beamed happily after the retreating carriage; then, with
his hand tightly clasped about the precious roll of greenbacks for
which he had so willingly bartered his freedom, he began a tour of the
Cotesville stores. When at length he staggered into the big grocery
store for his final purchases he was laden with a miscellaneous
collection of Christmas packages from which he was cheerfully
disentangled by the bulky proprietor himself. Uncle Noah made a
critical pilgrimage about the store, pausing at last before a counter
where the proprietor had laid out a number of turkeys for the careful
inspection of this beaming shopper about to select an understudy for
the incomparable Job. A very respectable fowl was presently mantled in
brown paper and laid beside the other bundles, along with sundry bags
of cranberries and apples, oranges and nuts, celery and raisins, cigars
for the Colonel, a box of candy for Mrs. Fairfax, huge bunches of holly
and mistletoe, Christmas wreaths for the windows, and a great bag of
cracked corn for the reprieved tyrant gloomily roosting in the ru