spite of
us."

Which statement gave the man from Dublin another sidelight on the race
question!

One of the servants announced a canoe in sight, coming from up the
river, and anticipating a probable addition to their visitors, Delaven
escaped by a side door, until the greetings were over, and walking
aimlessly along a little path back from the river, found it ended at a
group of pines surrounded by an iron railing, enclosing, also, the
high, square granite and marble abodes of the dead. It was here Nelse
had pointed when telling of Tom Loring's sudden death and burial.

He opened the gate, and as he did so noticed a woman at the other side
of the enclosure. Remembering how intensely superstitious the colored
folks were said to be, he wondered at one of them coming alone into
the grove so nearly darkened by the dense covering of pine, and with
only the ghostly white of the tombs surrounding her.

He halted and stood silent beside a tree until she arose and turned
towards the gate, then he could see plainly the clear, delicate
profile of the silent Margeret. Of all the people he had met in this
new country, this quiet, pale woman puzzled him most. She seemed to
compel an atmosphere of silence, for no one spoke of her. She moved
about like a shadow in the house, but she moved to some purpose, for
she was a most efficient housekeeper, even the pickaninnies from the
quarters--saucy and mischievous enough with any one else--were subdued
when Margeret spoke.

After she had passed out of the gate he went over where he had seen
her first. Two tombs were side by side, and of the same pattern; a
freshly plucked flower lay on one. He read the name beneath the
flower; it was, _Thomas Loring, in the thirtieth year of his age_; the
other tomb was that of his wife, who had died seven years earlier.

But it was on Tom Loring's tomb the blossom had been laid.

Was it merely an accident that it was the marble on which the fragrant
bit of red had been let fall? or--

He walked slowly back to the house, feeling that he had touched on
some story more strange than any Evilena had asked him to listen to of
the old days, and this one was vital, human, fascinating.

He wondered who she was, yet felt a reluctance to ask. To him she
appeared a white woman. Yet an intangible something in Miss Loring's
manner to her made him doubt. He remembered hearing Matthew Loring on
the voyage complain many times that Margeret would have arranged
th