have
slipped out of a plantation of the last century. They're absolutely
ante-bellum. Most of the negroes are more or less spoiled, as you'll
find, I'm afraid." She turned the conversation bluntly. "Had you seen
Damory Court before?"

"No, never."

"Do you like the general plan of the place?"

"Do I like it?" cried John Valiant. "Do I _like_ it!"

A quick pleasure glanced across her face. "It's nice of you to say it
that way. We ask that question so often it's become mechanical. You see,
it's our great show-place. We exhibit it to strangers as we show them
the Natural Bridge and Monticello, and expect them to rhapsodize. Years
ago the negroes would never set foot here. The house was supposed to be
haunted."

"I'm not afraid," he laughed. "I wouldn't blame any ghost for hanging
around. I'm thinking of haunting it myself in a hundred years or so."

"Oh, the specters are all laid long ago, if there ever were any."

At that moment a patter of footsteps and shrill shrieks came flying over
the last-year's leaves beyond the lilac bushes. "It's Rickey Snyder,"
she said, peering out smilingly as two children, pursued and pursuer,
burst into view. "Hush!" she whispered; "I wonder what they are up to."

The pair came in a whirl through the bushes. The foremost was a
seven-year-old negro girl, in a single short cottonade garment, wizened,
barelegged and bareheaded, her black wool parted in little angular
patches and tightly wrapped with bits of cord. The other was white and
as freckled as a turkey's egg, with hair cropped like a boy's. She
held a carving-knife cut from a shingle, whose edge had been deeply
ensanguined by poke-berry juice. The pursued one stumbled over a root
and came to earth in a heap, while the other pounced upon her like a
wildcat.

"Hold still, you limb of Satan," she scolded. "How can I do it when you
won't stay still?"

"Oh, Lawd," moaned the prostrate one, in simulated terror; "oh, Doctah,
good Doctah Snydah, has Ah _gotter_ hab dat operation? Is yo' sho'
gwineter twitter eroun' mah insides wid dem knives en saws en things?"

"It won't hurt," reassured the would-be operator; "no more than it did
Mis' Poly Gifford. And I'll put your liver right back again."

"Wait er minute. Ah jes' remembahs Ah fo'got ter make mah will. Ah
leabs--"

"Nonsense!" objected the other irritably. "You made it yesterday. They
always do it beforehand."

"No, suh; Ah done clean fergot et. Ah leabs mah thimble ter d