hustled the earth back upon it, pounded the brick into place, and lay flat down upon the dishonored tomb.

Mam' Chloe found me there at dinner-time, fast asleep. She dragged me back to consciousness and the open air by the heels. Not in wanton cruelty, but she was a large woman, and could get at me in no other way. While she washed and made me decent in clean frock, apron, and pantalettes, she scolded me for my "low-lived, onladylike ways," and warned me of her solemn intention to "tell my mother on me," the next time such a disgraceful thing happened. I did not mind the lecture. I knew Mam' Chloe, and she (Heaven rest her white, faithful soul in the Kingdom where the bond are free!) knew me, I verily believe, better than the mother that bore me.

Toilet and tirade ended, she slid me, as she might a proscribed book, through a crack in the side-door into the dining room, where Uncle Ike, her husband, was in waiting. He, in turn, smuggled me behind my mother's back to the side-table, there being no room for us children at the main board that day.

None of the dozen grown-up diners noticed me, or that Mary 'Liza, sitting prim and dainty on her side of our table, had her doll by her in another chair, and interrupted her meal, once in a while, to caress her or to re-arrange her curls and skirts. I affected not to see the pantomime, which I chose to assume was enacted for my further exasperation. I was apparently as indifferent to Uncle Ike's shameless partiality in loading my plate with choice tidbits, such as a gizzard, a merry-thought, or a cheese-cake, while Mary 'Liza had to ask twice for what she wanted. What was not tasteless was bitter to my palate. I wondered, dully, why the sight of the doll-baby and the fuss her owner made over her, turned me sick. As soon as I could get away, I slipped down, and out at the friendly side-door, and went to find Musidora. There was a new bond of union between us. She had no beautiful sister, I no beautiful daughter. Sitting down upon the hot step, before the kitchen yard, I hugged her hard and cried a little over her, in a brief, stormy way. The tears hurt me, as they came, and did not ease the hot ache in my chest or the lump in my throat.

At this juncture, when my misery was at its height, I heard Mary 'Liza in the chamber behind me, cooing to, and hushing her doll-baby, with tones and words copied faithfully from my mother's talk over my brother's cradle.

"Wouldn't you like to rock her a little while?" she called presently. "I wouldn't mind if you'd promise not to touch her. Sometimes your hands are not clean, you know."

I set my jaws savagely outside of my leaping tongue, not moving or looking up when I felt her standing close by me. Musidora had dropped from my lap, and lay, face downward, on the step. Mary 'Liza picked her up, and brushed the dust from her inexpressive visage.

"Poor thing!" purred she. "I hope nothing will ever happen to Rozillah. Isn't that a love-el-ly? I made it out of my own head from Rosa and Zillah, two love-el-ly girls I read of in a book."

"I think it is a nasty name," was my deliberate reply.

She recoiled with a fine horror which stung me like a nettle.

"Oh, Molly! what a word for a little lady to use!"

I looked up at her for the first time, my eyes burning in dry sockets.

"I think your doll-baby is nasty, and Rozillah is a nigger name! So there!"

I could command no worse language, for I knew none.

Mary 'Liza looked shocked and terrified. She glanced right and left and upward nervously, as fearing the punishment of heaven upon me.

"I am afraid that you are in a very bad humor," she faltered, her self-possession forsaking her for a moment. "I'd better leave you."

She had gone a dozen paces when she glanced over her shoulder to say, in her most grown-up and judicial manner:—

"I hope you will not make any noise and wake Rozillah up."

I rose and went straight to the cradle as soon as my cousin was out of sight. Cold, deadly fury possessed and filled me, casting out fear of consequences and routing the weakling conscience engendered and nourished by parental counsel. I plucked Rozillah from her downy bed and bore her into the air, cuffing her polished red cheeks soundly on the way. Then I stripped off her gay raiment and knotted the ribbon sash about her smooth neck. I had never tied a knot before, but this held, as did the loop I cast over a projecting branch of the sickly peach-sapling. Naked and forlorn, Rozillah dangled a foot and more from the ground. I fetched my father's riding-whip from the hall table, and the last feeble check upon my fury was released.

The next I knew a pair of cool, white arms closed about me and the whip together, and Cousin Molly Belle's voice, half-laughing, half-horrified, cried through the roaring in my ears:—

"Dear little Namesake! what has got into you?"

All at once, red mists parted and rolled away from my eyes, and I became conscious that Mary 'Liza was jumping up and down and screaming piteously, that everybody was on the spot—my father and mother and all the dinner company, and Mam' Chloe with the baby in her arms, and a ring of my small black servitors on the outside of the group; also that all eyes were focussed on me and what was left of Rozillah.

The lash had drawn sawdust at every blow. One arm and both legs were torn off and weltered in the scattered stuffing beneath; the crop of black curls was tangled in the topmost limb of the sapling. The blue silk gown would never fit the pliant waist again. Rozillah was beyond the possibility of reconstruction.

I threw my arms around Cousin Molly Belle's neck, and burst into a torrent of childish tears.

I think I must have been whipped for that afternoon's work. I ought to have been, and Solomon, as a disciplinarian, was in high repute in the family connection. I am sure that I was put forthwith to bed and left alone for an eternity without even Musidora to bear me company. I had an indefinite impression that they feared the effect of association with such a wicked child upon her morals and manners.

I recollect that my mother brought me the bread and milk which was all the supper I was to have, and talked me tenderly into tears.

But most vividly do I recall the apparition which stole into my solitude after supper—which I had scented longingly from afar. A wraith all in white—gown and neck and arms and face, the masses of fluffy hair making this last more wraith-like. It sank to the floor beside my low bed, and gathered me, miserable culprit, in a cuddling embrace, and bade me "tell Cousin all about it—the whole truly truth."

I could always talk to her, and I began at the beginning and went straight and steadfastly through to the nauseous end.

I did not cry while I talked, and when struck by her silence I raised a timid hand to her dear cheek and found it wet, I was surprised.

"Why, Cousin Molly Belle!" I stammered. "Are you so angry with me as that?"

"Angry? yes, Namesake, but not with you, poor little sinner! You and I are always getting into scrapes—aren't we? Maybe that is why I am going to ask your mother to let you sleep with me to-night."

Which delicious cup of happiness consoled the outgoing of the first tragical day of my life.