m, and no one knowing who he was till they sent for Tom
Hardy at that moment hurrying back to his home in Georgia, from which he
had come at the earnest request of his friend. He did not like the looks
of himself bedraggled and wet, and dead, on the deck of the "Hatty,"
with that curious crowd looking at him, Mandy Ann with the rest. Strange
that thoughts of Mandy Ann should flit through his mind as he decided
against the cold bath in the St. John's and _to face_ it, whatever it
was. Occasionally some one spoke to him, and he always answered
politely, and once offered his chair to a lady who seemed to be looking
for one. But she declined it, and he was again left alone. Once he went
to the other end of the boat for a little exercise and change, he said
to himself, but really for a chance of seeing Mandy Ann, who of all the
passengers interested him the most. But Mandy Ann was not in sight, nor
did he see her again till the boat was moving slowly up to the wharf at
Enterprise, and with her braided tags of hair standing up like little
horns, and her worldly goods tied up in a cotton handkerchief, she stood
respectfully behind the waiting crowd, each eager to be the first to
land.

The Brock House was full--"not so much as a cot or a shelf for one
more," the clerk said to the stranger, who was last at the desk. He had
lingered behind the others to watch Mandy Ann, with a half-formed
resolution to ask her to direct him to "ole Miss Harrises" if, as Ted
had said, she was going there. Mandy Ann did not seem to be in any hurry
and sauntered leisurely up the lane a little beyond the Brock House,
where she sat down and stretching out her bare feet began to suck an
orange Ted had given her at parting, telling her that though she was "an
onery nigger who belonged to a Cracker, she had rather far eyes and a
mouth that couldn't be beat for sass, adding that he reckoned that thar
tall man who didn't speak to nobody might be wantin' to buy her, as he
had done ast him oncet how far it was to the clarin', an' he couldn't
want nobody thar but her." Mandy Ann had taken the orange, but had
spurned what Ted had said of the tall man's intentions. She had been
told too many times, during her brief stay in Jacksonville as a nurse
girl, that she was of no manner of account to believe any one wished to
buy her, and she paid no attention to the tall man, except to see that
he was the last to enter the hotel, where he was told there was no room
fo