covered my mistake just in
time to keep from goin' stark crazy."

At this juncture, Lucy, a young mulatto, came and touched Mrs. Wrinkle
on the arm, with the regretful air of one not wishing to disturb her
superiors.

"Miss wants to know who's got here," she said.

The little old woman started, looked nervously into the faces of the
others, and then ejaculated, "It's Alf; tell 'er it's Alf."

"'Miss'?" Henley repeated, as the girl was withdrawing, muttering the
monosyllabic name to herself to fix it on her memory--"who's 'Miss'?"

"Why, it's Het herself," Wrinkle explained, readily enough. "You see,
the niggers all used to call Ben's mother 'Old Miss' till she died. I'm
told they started in to call Het 'Young Miss,' but when she put on crape
an' begun to fling orders about they cut off the 'Young' part. I reckon
they'll call you some'n or other to fit the dignity of yore position
when they git it into the'r noggin's jest how close you stand to the
prime head of it all. They know who me 'n Jane are, you bet yore life,
an' when we call 'em they come in a tilt with the'r hats in the'r hands.
I never lived before, it seems to me, an' I care less than I ever did
about the future state. This is good enough for me. If it will just go
at the present pace all the time, I won't care to git cold feet an'
retire to a soggy hole in the ground."

Wrinkle suddenly took on a look of attention to external sounds, and he
went to the door and peered cautiously up the stairs.

"I think I heard 'er walkin' about," he called back, and he waved his
hand downward as if commanding silence. "Yes, she's comin'. Ma, you 'n
me had better make ourselves scarce. You see, Alf," he went on, in a
rasping whisper and with a very grave face, "we don't exactly know when
we are wanted an' when we ain't. It wouldn't be so awkward if she'd lay
down some positive rule. She's different under every change, an' the
Lord knows she changes often enough."

With a frightened mien Mrs. Wrinkle lowered her head and glided quietly
from the room through a door in the rear.

"Take a cheer," was the old man's parting injunction to Henley. "Throw
yoreself back, an' cross yore legs, an' let 'er know at the outset that
you ain't beholden to 'er, an' that her rise in life don't make no odds
to you. That's the way Dick would act if he was alive. He'd 'a' been
cussin' these niggers about an' tellin' Het to git out o' that bed an'
fix some'n to eat. That's the way he wo