ll-fitting garments that hung about it. But she only wondered at him
and his rags, and at his motive for addressing her.

"We're come from St. Louis," she replied, taking him with a
seriousness which in no wise daunted him.

"Yo' all brung de rain," he went on sociably, leaving off the
scratching of his nose, to pass his black yellow-palmed hand slowly
through the now raging fire, a feat which filled her with
consternation. After prevailing upon him to desist from this
salamander like exhibition, she was moved to ask if he were not very
poor to be thus shabbily clad.

"No 'um," he laughed, "I got some sto' close yonda home. Dis yere coat
w'at Mista Gregor gi'me," looking critically down at its length, which
swept the floor as he remained on his knees. "He done all to'e tu
pieces time he gi' him tu me, whar he scuffle wid Jocint yonda tu de
mill. Mammy 'low she gwine mek him de same like new w'en she kin kotch
de time."

The entrance of Minervy bearing a tray temptingly arranged with a
dainty supper, served to silence the boy, who at seeing her, threw
himself upon all fours and appeared to be busy with the fire. The
woman, a big raw-boned field hand, set her burden awkwardly down on a
table, and after staring comprehensively around, addressed the boy in
a low rich voice, "Dar ain't no mo' call to bodda wid dat fiar, you
Sampson; how come Miss T'rese sont you lazy piece in yere tu buil'
fiar?"

"Don' know how come," he replied, vanishing with an air of the utmost
self-depreciation.

Hosmer and Fanny took tea together before the cheerful fire and he
told her something of methods on the plantation, and made her further
acquainted with the various people whom she had thus far encountered.
She listened apathetically; taking little interest in what he said,
and asking few questions. She did express a little bewilderment at the
servant problem. Mrs. Lafirme, during their short conversation, had
deplored her inability to procure more than two servants for her; and
Fanny could not understand why it should require so many to do the
work which at home was accomplished by one. But she was tired--very
tired, and early sought her bed, and Hosmer went in quest of his
sister whom he had not yet seen.

Melicent had been told of his marriage some days previously, and had
been thrown into such a state of nerves by the intelligence, as to
seriously alarm those who surrounded her and whose experience with
hysterical girls had been