er, for the little hands were grimy, and the face very sticky,
and a good deal of scrubbing had been necessary, with a good deal of
squabbling, too--and the Colonel had heard some of the altercations--the
child's voice the louder, as she protested against the soap and water
used so freely. Jake had closed one of the doors to shut out the noise,
saying as he did so, "She's got a heap of sperrit, but not from de
Harrises, dey hadn't an atom."

It did not puzzle the Colonel at all to know where the _sperrit_ came
from, and he did not like the child the less because of it. She was in
the room now, scrubbed till her face shone, and her hair, which was
curly, lay in rings upon her forehead. Mandy Ann had put on her best
frock, a white one, stiff with starch, and standing out like a small
balloon. The Colonel liked her better in the limp, soiled gown, as he
had seen her first, but she was clean, and she came to him and put up
her hand as Mandy Ann had told her to do. It was a little soft, fat,
baby hand, such as the Colonel had never touched in his life, and he
took it and held it a moment, while the old malarious feeling crept over
him, and he could have sworn that the thermometer, which, when he left
the "Hatty" had stood at seventy-five, had fallen to forty degrees. As a
quietus during the washing, Mandy Ann had suggested that "mabby de
gemman done brung somethin'," and remembering this the little girl at
once asked, "Has you done brung me sumptin'? Mandy Ann tole me so."

The Colonel's thermometer dropped lower still at the speech, so
decidedly African, and his pride rose up in rebellion, and his heart
sank, as in fancy he heard this dialect in his Northern home. But he
must bear it, and when, as he did not at once respond to her question,
she said, "Has you done brung me sumptin'?" he was glad he had removed
the little ivory book from his watch-chain. It was something, and he
gave it to her, saying, "This is for you--a little book. Do you know
what a book is?"

She was examining the ornament on the back of which was carved a
miniature bar of music, with three or four notes. The child had seen
written music in a hymn-book, which belonged to her mother, and from
which she had often pretended to sing, when she played at a _funeral_,
or prayer meeting, as she sometimes did under the _shady_. Jake had not
spoken of this habit to the Colonel. He was waiting to take him to the
graves, and the play-house near them, and he was w