girls used to say that he took Elinor in full settlement of all indebtedness. After the marriage he built this house and you were born,” she pointed upwards, “in that big corner room on the second floor.”

“Please go on, Hennie,” begged the girl, after a pause in which the older woman’s thoughts wandered in the past.

“I was thinking of the good times I’ve had in this house. Your mother used to give delightful dances.”

“Dances, here!” Virginia’s astonishment was evident.

“Certainly, I have danced here many times until three o’clock in the morning and thought nothing of it.”

“You danced, too?” It was as if the girl were shocked.

“Of course I danced. Do you think I was a wall flower who could lure no partners to myself?” Mrs. Henderson demanded with spirit. “Remember, I had been married only a year. There were grand dinners, too.” She went on more calmly. “How we enjoyed Serena’s cooking and afterwards many is the gay crowd this porch sheltered in those days.”

“It is hard to imagine, Hennie.” The girl shook her head soberly. “Daddy and I are so quiet. We sit here in the evenings and I talk until he falls asleep. Then I watch the fire-flies until he wakes up and we go to bed. The thought of him dancing is very strange.”

There was a note of pity in Mrs. Henderson’s voice when she spoke, “To be sure it is, dear. I never said that your father danced. He seemed to enjoy having people here. It was your mother, though, who loved that sort of thing and her word was law to him in everything. She depended on Hezekiah Wilkins to set the pace by wielding a rhythmic toe, as he used to call it.” A smile of gay memories died in her eyes at more solemn thoughts. “Those good times lasted only a couple of years. Your mother was taken ill and then–” she paused and continued softly, “–one afternoon she went away from the room upstairs and left you, dear,” her voice caught, “to Serena and me.”

Mrs. Henderson’s arm went about the girl but in a moment she resumed, “After the death of your mother your father devoted himself to money making again. It took all of his time.” There was a flash of anger in her eye. “He has succeeded very well in that.”

Mrs. Henderson arose hastily. “Dear me, child, I am staying too long. You should go to some of these youthful affairs about town. I imagine that the boys and girls of South Ridgefield have some very good times.”

The girl’s eyes lighted with interest but in a moment it had gone, replaced by a thoughtful little smile. “Daddy would be lonely without me. I ought not to leave him alone in the evening.”

Again the angry glint came in Mrs. Henderson’s eyes, but she controlled herself and said quietly, “You are the best judge of that, dear. But now that you have finished school you should have something to occupy your time. I know that Serena would have you play great lady, but, with due respect to her ideas, you will find it a lonely game in these busy days. Why don’t you give some of your time to helping those not so fortunate as you? Think it over, child,” she urged as she left.

After her caller had departed Virginia returned to the couch and with intense interest gave herself up to the examination of the book which had been her mother’s.

A negress of uncertain age appeared in the doorway of the house. Her hair was streaked with grey and she was enormously fat. She wore a calico dress over the front of which stretched a snowy white apron, its strings lost in a crease of flesh at the waist line. Bound about her head was a white handkerchief and her sleeves were rolled to her elbows.

She moved about the porch replacing the wicker furniture. Stopping by the couch she rearranged some magazines, and then, “Honey chil’, ain’ you gwine git dressed? De clock done struck fo’.”

“In a minute.”

Serena’s eyes wandered to the side lawn. Instantly her attention was riveted upon certain objects protruding from some shrubbery. They were conspicuous and unusual as lawn decorations, bulking large beside a recumbent lawn mower, a rake and grass shears.

“You Ike,” she shouted. The objects moved convulsively. “Wot you mean a sleepin’ under dat bush?” The commotion in the shrubbery ceased and the objects reappeared in their normal position as the feet of a sleepy-eyed negro youth.

“Ah ain’ a sleepin’ none, Miss Sereny, ah was a layin’ under dat bush a ca’culatin’ whar ah gwine to trim it.”

“You got a po’ haid fo’ figgers den. You computen all dis yere afternoon, ah guesses. Ma eye is on you, boy. Go change you’ clothes an’ git dat ca’ah down to de office a fo’ you is late.”

Ike gathered the tools and disappeared in haste.

Serena turned again to the girl, who had displayed but slight interest in the sleeping laborer. “It gittin’ mighty late, chil’.”

“Yes, I know, Serena.”

“You bettah dress you’se’f.”

“Please, only a little longer.”

“You gwine be fo’ced to be mighty spry den,” warned the old negress as she waddled into the house.

“Oh, how wonderful,” breathed the girl, a great joy suddenly showing in her face. “It’s for me–from mother. Really.”

The worn volume lay open in her lap. It contained selections from the works of many poets. Upon the page before her these lines, taken from Coleridge’s, “The Ancient Mariner,” were printed,

They were heavily underlined. In the broad margin was written in a tremulous hand which displayed the effects of illness,

A vast tenderness enfolded the girl. She reread the lines. “My mother is telling me how to live,” she whispered. “Her voice is calling to me through all the years–the only time.” She touched her lips impulsively to the place where the cherished hand had rested and then, clasping the book to her breast, she closed her eyes and remained so for awhile. When her lids raised anew, the blue eyes were filled with a great yearning as she breathed softly and reverently as if in prayer, “Yes, mother.”

A little later, Virginia entered the house and Serena told her, “Ah done lay out yo’all’s clothes, honey chil’. Ef you want anythin’ else jes yell.”

The girl dreamily climbed the broad staircase. At the bend she remembered something, and, turning back, smiled down at the old colored woman below. “Thank you, Serena,” she called.

Amply rewarded, the faithful servant contentedly busied herself once more with the affairs of the Dale household. From that far away day when she had, “’cided ah gwine foller Miss Elinor to de no’th,” she had been recognized by well informed persons as one in authority in that home.

It was Serena who first held Virginia in her arms and tenderly rocked the squirming red mite across her ample bosom. During those long days and nights of watching in the last illness of Elinor Dale, it was Serena who, with undisguised distrust of the trained nurse, was in and out of the sick room almost every hour. It was Serena who closed Elinor Dale’s eyes, and it was Serena who held the motherless child with great tears rolling down her black face as she stood by the open grave.

No formal agreement held Serena after the death of her mistress. She saw the home as a storm tossed craft, from whose deck the navigator had been swept,