accede,
Fudjinia; they can't do without us."

"I think, Fannie," said Barbara, looking very business-like, "we'd
better have them name their price and agree to it at once, and so be
sure----"

"Lawd, honey!" cried Virginia, "we ain't goin' to ax no prices to
you-all! sufficiend unto de price is de laboh theyof, an' we leaves dat
to yo' generos'ty. Yass, dass right where we proud an' joyful to leave
it--to yo' generos'ty."

"Well, now, remember, the Tombses mustn't know a breath about this.
You'll find Johanna in the kitchen. She'll have to give you her room and
sleep on the floor in Miss Barb's; she'll be glad of the excuse----"

"Thaank you, Miss Fannie," replied Virginia, with amiable complacency,
"but we 'llowin' to soj'u'n with friends in town."

"O, indeed! Well"--Arrangements for a later conference were made.
"Good-evening. I'm glad you're bringing such a nice-looking girl to Mrs.
March. What is her--what is your name?"

"Daaphne."

"What!"

"Yass'm. Mr. Mahch say whiles I wuck faw he's maw he like me to be naame
Jaane, but my fo'-true name's Daaphne, yass'm."

"Barb," said Fannie, "I've just thought of something we must attend to
in the house at once!"

XLVIII.

DELILAH

Daphne Jane was one of Leggettstown's few social successes. She was
neither comely nor guileless, but she was tremendously smart. Her pious
parents had sent her for two or three terms to the "Preparatory
Department" of Suez University, where she had learned to read, write,
and add--she had been born with a proficiency in subtraction. But she
had proved flirtatious, and her father and mother had spent their later
school outlays on her younger brothers and sisters. Daphne Jane had
since then found sufficient and glad employ trying to pomatum the
frizzles out of her hair, and lounging whole hours on her window-sill to
show the result to her rivals and monopolize and cheer the passing
toiler with the clatter of her perky wit and the perfumes of bergamot
and cinnamon.

Cornelius Leggett had easily discovered this dark planet, but her
parents were honestly, however crudely, trying to make their children
better than their betters expected them to be, and they forbade him the
house and her the lonely stroll.

The daughter, from the first moment, professed to look with loathing
upon the much-married and probably equally widowed Cornelius, but her
mother did not trust her chaste shudderings. When John March came
looking for a d