g upon his conscience.

LXIV.

JUDICIOUS JOHANNA

One thing that gives play for sentiment concerning a three hours'
belated railway train is the unapologetic majesty with which at last it
rolls into a terminal station.

There had been rain-storms and freshets down in Dixie, and a subdued
anxiety showed itself on Johanna's face as she stepped down from the
crowded platform; but she shone with glad astonishment when she found
John March taking her forgotten satchel from her hands and her checks
from the express messenger.

A great many people looked at them, once for curiosity and again for
pleasure; for she was almost as flattering a representative of her class
as he of his, and in meeting each other they seemed happy enough to have
been twins. The hotel's conveyance was an old-fashioned stage-coach, but
very new and blue. It made her dumb with delight to see the owner-like
serenity with which Mr. March passed her into it and by and by out of it
into the gorgeous hotel. But to double the dose of some drugs reverses
their effect, and her supper, served in the ladies' ordinary and by a
white man-servant, actually brought her to herself. As she began to
eat--blissfully, for only a yard or so away sat Mr. March smilingly
holding back a hundred inquiries--she managed, herself, to ask a
question or two. She grew pensive when told of Miss Fannie's sickness
and of the bridegroom's being compelled to go to Washington, but revived
in reporting favorably upon the health of Mrs. March, whom, she said,
she had seen at a fair given by both the Suez churches to raise money to
repair the graveyard fence--"on account o' de hawgs breakin' in so
awfm."

"And you say everybody was there, eh?" indolently responded John, as he
resharpened his lead-pencil. "Even including Professor Pettigrew?"

"No, seh, I observe he not 'mongs' de comp'ny, 'caze yo' maw's Jane, she
call my notice to dat."

"I wonder how my mother likes Jane. Do you know?"

Johanna showed a pretty embarrassment. "Jane say yo' maw like her. She
say yo' maw like her 'caze she always done tole yo' maw ev'thing what
happm when yo' maw not at home. Seh? Oh, no, seh," the speaker's
bashfulness increased, "'tis on'y Jane say dat; same time she call my
notice to de absence o' Pufesso' Pedigree--yass, seh."

John gave himself a heartier manner. "I reckon, Johanna, you'd be rather
amazed to hear that I traveled nearly all the way from Pulaski City with
yo' young mis