I--I--I understood you had no children," I said, trying to conceal my
dismay by bending over my plate.

"Quite true, quite true, Stone. We've never had a child born to us. I
got in the habit of calling the boss mother, from S'lome."

"Who is Salome?" I asked, but my voice was so weak that it scarcely
conveyed the question.

"Bless me! didn't Walker tell you? I'll wring the rascal's neck for
forgettin' S'lome. Why, man, she's the pride of this farm, and the queen
of every heart on it! S'lome? Who's S'lome? Ask any nigger or dog in the
county, and they'll tell you. She's our 'dopted daughter, man, off to
Bellwood for her second year, and'll be home the fifth of June, God
bless her!"

VII

Like most country folks, my new friends went to bed shortly after
sundown. About nine o'clock, I took my pipe and my tobacco-pouch, and
crept noiselessly out to the front porch. I had noticed a quaint settee
there upon my arrival that morning, and I had no trouble in finding it
now, for a ghostly moonlight had settled over everything. My mind was
confronted by a question of decidedly more moment than any under which
it had at any time before labored, and I had to think it out before I
could sleep. If my cherished and faithful pipe, together with solitude
and the wondrous silence of a night in spring, could not bring a
solution to me, then the question was certainly beyond me.

"--And'll be home the fifth of June, God bless her!"

I think they were the last distinct words I heard at that meal. I
remember mumbling something about the pleasure in store for me, and
while my tongue pronounced this statement, my conscience denounced me as
a liar. It would be no pleasure. An upstart of a boarding-school girl,
with her airy ways, her college slang and her ear-piercing laughter,
tearing around the house like a young cyclone, having girl friends and
boy friends hanging around continually,--the thought was not
encouraging, and I groaned in spirit, and puffed away, setting misty
shallops afloat upon the sea of moonlight. And these little shallops
must have borne away as cargo my fretting and my fears, for presently I
fell into a philosophic mood, and the future looked brighter. One thing
was sure--I could not run away. That would be cowardice, as well as an
affront to hospitality. And did the worthy man snoring in a near-by room
once know that I thought of leaving because his idol was coming, he
would doubtless hasten my departure by