'true's I live she's got a ring on her weddin' finger! Why
didn't she never war it afore an' let it be known?" she said to herself,
stooping down to inspect the ring, which to her dim old eyes seemed like
the real coin. "She wouldn't _lie_ in her coffin, an' I b'lieve she was
good after all, an' I've been too hard on her," she continued, waddling
to a seat outside, and communicating her change of sentiment to the
woman next to her, who told it to the next, until it was pretty
generally known that "ole Miss Thomas had _gin in_, 'case Miss Dory had
on her weddin' ring."

Nearly every one else present had "gin in" long before, and now that
Mrs. Thomas had declared herself, the few doubtful ones followed her
lead, and there were only kind, pitying words said of poor Dory, as they
waited for the minister to come, and the services to begin.

CHAPTER VI

THE SERVICES

The blacks were outside the house, and the whites inside, when Jake
drove his shay to the door, and the Rev. Mr. Mason alighted, wiping the
sweat from his face and looking around with a good deal of curiosity. A
mulatto boy came forward to take charge of the mule, and Jake ushered
the minister into the room where the coffin stood, and where were the
four men he had asked to be bearers.

"I s'pose I'd or'ter of had six," he said in a whisper; "but she's so
light, four can tote her easy, an' they's all very 'spectable. No
low-downs. I means everything shall be fust-class."

Wrapped in shawls, with her head nodding up and down, old Mrs. Harris
sat, more deaf and more like a dried mummy than she had been on the
occasion of the stranger's visit. Jake had bought her an ear trumpet,
but she seldom used it, unless compelled by Mandy Ann, who now sat near
her with the little girl who, at sight of Jake, started to meet him.
But, Mandy Ann held her back and whispered, "Can't you done 'have
yerself at yer mammy's funeral an' we the only mourners?"

The child only understood that she was to keep quiet, and sat down in
her little chair, while Jake motioned to Mr. Mason that he was to see
Miss Dory.

During her illness her hair had fallen out so fast that it had been cut
off, and now lay in soft rings around her forehead, giving her more the
look of a child than of a girl of twenty, as the plate on her coffin
indicated. "Eudora, aged twenty," was all there was on it, and glancing
at it Mr. Mason wondered there was no other name. Jake saw the look and
whispered