s of testing the ability of his new purchase, the hound
dog, and that they had resorted to some ghost trick to get rid of
him.

He could not surmise how the shade of Margeret had been made do duty
for the occasion, her subdued, serious manner giving the denial to any
practical joke escapades.

But the news Pluto brought of Mrs. McVeigh's homecoming dwarfed all
such episodes as a scared nigger who refused to go into details as to
the scare, and in his own words was "boun' an' sot" to keep his mouth
shut in future about anything in the past which he ever had known and
seen, or anything in his brief earthly future which he might know or
see. He even begged Delaven to forget immediately the numerous bits of
history he, Nelse, had repeated of the Loring family, and Delaven
comforted him by declaring that all he could remember that minute was
the horse race and he would put that out of his mind at once if
necessary.

Nelse was not sure it was necessary to forget _that_, because it
didn't in any way reflect discredit on the family, and he didn't in
reason see why his Mahs Duke should object to that story unless it was
on account of the high-flier lady from Philadelphia what Mahs Duke won
away from Mr. Jackson without any sort of trouble at all, and if Mahs
Duke was hovering around in the library when Miss Evilena and Mahs
Doctor listened to that story, Mahs Duke ought to know in his heart,
if he had any sort of memory at all, that he, Nelse, had not told half
what he might have told about that Northern filly and Mahs Duke. And
taking it all in all Nelse didn't see any reason why Delaven need put
that out of his remembrance--especially as it was mighty good running
for two-year-olds.

Evilena had peeped in for a moment to say good-bye to their dusky
Homer. But the call was very brief. All her thoughts were filled with
the folks at the Terrace, and dawn in the morning had been decided on
for the ten-mile row home, so anxious was she to greet her mother, and
so lively was her interest in the wonderful foreigner whom Dr. Delaven
had described as "Beauty's self."

That lady had in the meantime arrived at the Terrace, partaken of a
substantial supper, and retired to her own apartments, leaving
behind her an impression on the colored folks of the household that
the foreign guest was no one less than some latter day queen of
Sheba. Never before had their eyes beheld a mistress who owned white
servants, and the maid servant hers