an' God is takin' keer of him. He knows
all the good thar was at the last, an' I 'specs thar was a heap."

By this time Amy had tired of the twins, who had fingered her rings and
buttons, and stroked her dress and hair, and called her a pretty lady,
and asked her on the sly for a nickel. She was getting restless, when
Jakey said, "If you'd like to see your mudder's grave, come wid me."

From the house to the enclosure where the Harrises were buried he had
made a narrow road, beside which eucalyptus trees and oleanders were
growing, and along this walk the party followed him to Eudora's grave.

"I can have 'Crompton' put hyar now that I am shu'," Jake said, pointing
to the vacant space after Eudora. "I wish dar was room for 'belobed wife
of Cunnel Crompton.' I reckons, though, she wasn't 'belobed,' or why was
he so dogon mean to her?" he added, kneeling by the grave and picking a
dead leaf and bud which his quick eye had detected amid the bloom.
"Couldn't you done drap a tear 'case your mother is lyin' here?" he said
to Amy, who shook her head.

The dead mother was not as real to her as the living Jake, to whom she
said, "As you talk to me I remember something of her, and people making
a noise. But it is long ago, and much has happened since. I can't cry.
Is it wrong?"

She looked at Eloise, who replied, "No, darling; you have cried enough
for one day. Some time we will come here again, and you'll remember
more. Let us go."

"What is your plan now?" Mr. Mason asked Jack when, after a half hour
spent with Jake, they were driving back to the Brock House.

"I have been thinking," Jack replied, "that I will leave the ladies for
a few days at the hotel, while I go to Palatka and Atlanta, and see if
anything can be learned of the Browns, or Harrises, or the Hardy
plantation, where the marriage took place. I wish to get all the facts I
can, although the certificate should be sufficient to establish Mrs.
Amy's right to the estate. I don't think she realizes her position, as
heir to the finest property in Crompton."

She didn't realize it at all, but was very willing to stay at the Brock
House with Eloise, while Jack went to Palatka and Atlanta to see what he
could find. It was not much. Tom Hardy had been killed in the war, and
had left no family. This he was told in Palatka. In Atlanta he learned
that before the war there had been a plantation near the city owned by a
Hardy family, all of whom were dead or had disappear