Een some ole lone-some graveyahd,
O Lawd, ho-ow long?"

She had left the high Montmartre cottage and had come down to keep
house for Peter, his being a very simple menage. Oddly, the denizens
of the Quartier didn't faze her in the least. She chuckled over
them, an old negro woman's sinful chuckle. She made no slightest
attempt to conquer the French language, which she didn't in the
least admire. She learned the equivalents for a few phrases of her
own,--"I hongry," "How much?" "Gimme dat," and "Mistuh Peter gone
out," and on this slight foundation she managed to keep a fairly
firm footing. The frequenters of Peter's studio were delighted with
Emma Campbell; they recognized her artistic availability, and she
and her black cat were borrowed liberally.

As a rule, she was willing to lend herself to art, and was a patient
model, until one rash young man took it into his head, that he must
have Emma Campbell as a favorite old attendant upon the _Queen of
Sheba_ he proposed to paint. He was a very earnest young German,
that painter, speaking fairly good English. Emma had liked him more
than most; but her faith received a blow from which it never
recovered. That young man wished to paint her _au naturel_--her,
Emma Campbell, who had been a member in good standing of the Young
Sons and Daughters of Zion, the Children of Mary Magdalen, and the
Burying Society of the Sons and Daughters of the Rising Star in the
Bonds of Love! In the altogether! Emma Campbell gasped like a hooked
fish. She made a nozzle of her mouth and protruded her eyes. She
said ominously:

"I bawn nekked, but I ain't had nuttin' to do wid dat. Dat de fust
en de last time I show up wid mah rind out o' doors. I been livin'
in clo'es evuh sence, en I 'speck to die in clo'es."

The artist, who wanted Emma in his picture, tried to make her
understand. He reasoned with her manfully:

"Ach, silly nigger-woman! Clothes, clothes! What are clothes! See,
now: you are the Queen of Sheba's old slave. Your large black feet
and legs are bare, a glittering amulet swings between your withered
breasts of an old African, you wear heavy bracelets and anklets,
around your lean flanks is a little, thin striped apron, and you
hold in your hand the great fan of peacock feathers! Magnificent!
You are the queen's old slave, imbecile!"

"Is I? Boy, is you evuh hear tell o' Mistuh Abe Linkum? Aftuh
Gin'ral Sherman bun down de big house smack en smoove, en tote off