his mind:

"She doan or'ter be brung up wid Crackers an' niggers."

"No, she don't or'ter," the Colonel thought, involuntarily adopting
Jake's dialect; but what to do with her was the question.

If Tom Hardy had been home he would have consulted him, but Tom was
away, and he must face the difficulty alone, knowing perfectly well what
his duty was, and finally making up his mind to do it. If he chose to
adopt a child it was no one's business. As a Crompton he was above
caring for gossip or public opinion. To be sure the child would be a
nuisance, and a constant reminder of what he would like to forget; but
it was right, and he owed it to the mother to care for her little girl.
He began to think a good deal of himself for this kind of reasoning, and
by the time he reached Jacksonville he had made up his mind that he was
a pretty nice man after all, and felt happier than he had in years.
Death had closed one page of his life, and the distance between Florida
and Massachusetts would close the other, and he was much like himself
when he at last stepped on board the "Hatty," and started up the river.

There was room for him at the Brock House this time, and he registered
his name. "Col. James Crompton, Crompton, Mass.," and said he had come
to look after a family in the palmetto clearing, Harris was the name,
and through a friend he was interested in them. The landlord was not the
same who had been there on the occasion of the Colonel's first visit,
but he knew something about the clearing, and volunteered whatever
information he had concerning the family, speaking of the recent death
of the demented old woman, and of the little child left to the care of
two negroes, and saying, he hoped the gentleman had come to take it to
its friends, if it had any.

The Colonel bowed and said that was his business, and early the next
morning started on foot along the road he had trodden twice before, and
which brought Eudora before him so vividly that it seemed as if she were
walking at his side, and once, as some animal ran through the bushes
near the grave at the turn of the road, he started at the sound as if it
had been the rustle of Eudora's white dress as he heard it that day. He
was beginning to get nervous, and by the time the clearing was reached
he was as cold as he had been at home, when Peter brought him the
hot-water bag and blanket. He noticed the improvements which had been
made in the place since he was there last, and