house of which she herself was not aware.

He was now awaiting for the twins, and still puzzling over the problem of
who that girl might be, and how she happened to be in that young fellow's
room at daybreak in the morning.

CHAPTER 8

Marse Tom Tramples His Chance

The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and
enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not
asked to lend money.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young June
bug than an old bird of paradise.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

It is necessary now to hunt up Roxy.

At the time she was set free and went away chambermaiding, she was
thirty-five. She got a berth as second chambermaid on a Cincinnati boat
in the New Orleans trade, the _Grand Mogul_. A couple of trips made her
wonted and easygoing at the work, and infatuated her with the stir and
adventure and independence of steamboat life. Then she was promoted and
become head chambermaid. She was a favorite with the officers, and
exceedingly proud of their joking and friendly way with her.

During eight years she served three parts of the year on that boat, and
the winters on a Vicksburg packet. But now for two months, she had had
rheumatism in her arms, and was obliged to let the washtub alone. So she
resigned. But she was well fixed--rich, as she would have described it;
for she had lived a steady life, and had banked four dollars every month
in New Orleans as a provision for her old age. She said in the start
that she had "put shoes on one bar'footed nigger to tromple on her with,"
and that one mistake like that was enough; she would be independent of
the human race thenceforth forevermore if hard work and economy could
accomplish it. When the boat touched the levee at New Orleans she bade
good-by to her comrades on the _Grand Mogul_ and moved her kit ashore.

But she was back in a hour. The bank had gone to smash and carried her
four hundred dollars with it. She was a pauper and homeless. Also
disabled bodily, at least for the present. The officers were full of
sympathy for her in her trouble, and made up a little purse for her. She
resolved to go to her birthplace; she had friends there among the Negros,
and the unfortunate always help the unfortunate, she was well aware of
that; those lowly comrades of her youth would not let her starve.

She took the little local packe