r away--the
image of the loving Tryon--that any powerful witchcraft was required to
call it up. His mother was a widow; Rena had thought, in happier days,
that she might be such a kind lady as this. But the cruel Tryon who
had left her--his mother would be some hard, cold, proud woman, who
would regard a negro as but little better than a dog, and who would not
soil her lips by addressing a colored person upon any other terms than
as a servant. She knew, too, that Tryon did not live in Sampson
County, though the exact location of his home was not clear to her.

"And where are you staying, my dear?" asked the good lady.

"I'm boarding at Mrs. Wain's," answered Rena.

"Mrs. Wain's?"

"Yes, they live in the old Campbell place."

"Oh, yes--Aunt Nancy. She's a good enough woman, but we don't think
much of her son Jeff. He married my Amanda after the war--she used to
belong to me, and ought to have known better. He abused her most
shamefully, and had to be threatened with the law. She left him a year
or so ago and went away; I haven't seen her lately. Well, good-by,
child; I'm coming to your exhibition. If you ever pass my house, come
in and see me."

The good lady had talked for half an hour, and had brought a ray of
sunshine into the teacher's monotonous life, heretofore lighted only by
the uncertain lamp of high resolve. She had satisfied a pardonable
curiosity, and had gone away without mentioning her name.

Rena saw Plato untying the pony as the lady climbed into the phaeton.

"Who was the lady, Plato?" asked the teacher when the visitor had
driven away.

"Dat 'uz my ole mist'iss, ma'm," returned Plato proudly,--"ole Mis'
'Liza."

"Mis' 'Liza who?" asked Rena.

"Mis' 'Liza Tryon. I use' ter b'long ter her. Dat 'uz her son, my
young Mars Geo'ge, w'at driv pas' hyuh yistiddy wid 'is sweetheart."

XXVIII

THE LOST KNIFE

Rena had found her task not a difficult one so far as discipline was
concerned. Her pupils were of a docile race, and school to them had
all the charm of novelty. The teacher commanded some awe because she
was a stranger, and some, perhaps, because she was white; for the
theory of blackness as propounded by Plato could not quite
counter-balance in the young African mind the evidence of their own
senses. She combined gentleness with firmness; and if these had not
been sufficient, she had reserves of character which would have given
her the mastery over much less plastic mater