told him of the card taken to her mistress on a china plate, of the
table with its four candles, and ole Miss's handkerchief for a napkin,
and of her waiting just as she had seen it done at Miss Perkins's.

"The gemman was gran' an' tall, an' mighty fine spoken, like all dem
quality from de Norf," she said, although in fact he was the first
person she had ever seen from the North; but that made no difference
with Mandy Ann. "He was a gemman--he had given her a dollar, and he was
shoo to come back."

This she said many times to her young mistress, keeping her spirits up,
helping her to hope against hope, while the seasons came and went, and
letters were sometimes received or sent, first to Tom Hardy and
forwarded by him either to the North or to Eudora. There was no lack of
money, but this was not what the young girl wanted. Mandy Ann had said
she had not much _sperrit_, and she certainly had not enough to claim
her rights, but clung to a morbid fancy of what was her duty, bearing up
bravely for a long time, trying to learn, trying to read the books
recommended to her in her Northern letters, and sent for by Jake to
Palatka, trying to understand what she read, and, most pitiful of all,
trying to be a lady, fashioned after her own ideas, and those of Jake
and Mandy Ann. Jake told her what he had seen the quality do in
Richmond, while Mandy Ann boasted her superior knowledge, because of her
three months with Miss Perkins's in Jacksonville, and rehearsed many
times the way she had seen young ladies "come into de house, shake han's
an' say how d'ye, an' hole' thar kyard cases so" (illustrating with a
bit of block), "an' thar parasols so" (taking up granny's cane), "an'
set on the aidge of thar char straight up, an' Miss Perkins bowin' an'
smilin' an' sayin' how glad she was to see 'em, an' den when dey's gone
sayin' sometimes, 'I wonder what sent 'em hyar to-day, when it's so
powerful hot, an' I wants to take my sester'--dat's her nap, you know,
after dinner, what plenty ladies take--an' den you mus' sometimes speak
sharp like to Jake an' to me, an' not be so soff spoken, as if we wasn't
yer niggers, 'case we are, or I is, an' does a heap o' badness; an' you
orto pull my har f'or it."

Confused and bewildered Eudora listened, first to Jake and then to Mandy
Ann, but as she had no card case, no parasol, and no ladies called upon
her, she could only try to remember the proper thing to do when the time
came, if it ever did. B