face. "Sh,--sh," she said as if she
were soothing a baby, "don't go on lak dat. W'y whut's de mattah wid
you, Miss Mime? 'Pears lak you done los' all yo' spe'it. Whut you
reckon yo' pappy 'u'd t'ink ef he could see you ca'in' on dis away?
Didn' he put his han' on yo' haid an' call you his own brave little
gal, jes' befo', jes' befo'--he went?"

The girl raised her head for a moment and looked at the old woman.

"Oh, mammy, mammy," she cried, "I have tried so hard to be brave--to
be really my father's daughter, but I can't, I can't. Everything I
turn my hand to fails. I've tried sewing, but here every one sews for
herself now. I've even tried writing," and here a crimson glow burned
in her cheeks, "but oh, the awful regularity with which everything
came back to me. Why, I even put you in a story, Mammy Peggy, you
dear old, good, unselfish thing, and the hard-hearted editor had the
temerity to decline you with thanks."

"I wouldn't'a' nevah lef' you nohow, honey."

Mima laughed through her tears. The strength of her first grief had
passed, and she was viewing her situation with a whimsical enjoyment
of its humorous points.

"I don't know," she went on, "it seems to me that it's only in stories
themselves that destitute young Southern girls get on and make fame
and fortune with their pens. I'm sure I couldn't."

"Of course you couldn't. Whut else do you 'spect? Whut you know 'bout
mekin' a fortune? Ain't you a Ha'ison? De Ha'isons nevah was no buyin'
an' sellin', mekin' an' tradin' fambly. Dey was gent'men an' ladies
f'om de ve'y fus' beginnin'."

"Oh what a pity one cannot sell one's quality for daily bread, or
trade off one's blue blood for black coffee."

"Miss Mime, is you out o' yo' haid?" asked Mammy Peggy in disgust and
horror.

"No, I'm not, Mammy Peggy, but I do wish that I could traffic in some
of my too numerous and too genteel ancestors instead of being
compelled to dispose of my ancestral home and be turned out into the
street like a pauper."

"Heish, honey, heish, I can' stan' to hyeah you talk dat-away. I's
so'y to see dee ol' place go, but you got to go out of it wid yo' haid
up, jes' ez ef you was gwine away fo' a visit an' could come back w'en
evah you wanted to."

"I shall slink out of it like a cur. I can't meet the eyes of the new
owner; I shall hate him."

"W'y, Miss Mime, whaih's yo' pride? Whaih's yo' Ha'ison pride?"

"Gone, gone with the deed of this house and its furniture. Gone