that I'd often used as
nurse in cases where they couldn't pay a professional. She could do
anything, the way those Southern darkies can, and she would cook and
look after things generally.

"Well, in three days it seemed as if I'd always been there. You know
how quickly a man manages a change like that; it's hard to see where
the women generate all the friction they make out of a move of that
sort. Althea was frying chicken contentedly and Mynie was sweeping and
dusting as quietly as she always did.

"She was a slender, oval-faced little yellow girl with almost straight
hair, parted and drawn down like a madonna's, very low voiced and
capable, with only one fault; she was almost too shy and always timid
that she'd make some blunder--which she seldom if ever did. She was
devoted to her mother, who had brought her up particularly well, and
delighted to be living with her. The patients all liked her and she
was especially tactful with children.

"One day, after I'd been there a week, I strolled out in the kitchen.

"'This strikes me as being a pretty good house, eh, Althea?' I said.
'New and clean. Everything all right?'

"'Yes, Dr. Stanchon, thank you, seh, it seems like a very good house,
seh,' she answered respectfully.

"'It's right surprisin' Mrs. Mears didn't like it!' says Mynie with a
little giggle.

"It struck me then that I had never known Mynie to speak, in her life,
without being spoken to, and even so, when I had occasion to speak to
her, she started and looked a little scared. I supposed living with
her mother had given her more confidence and felt rather glad of it.

"It might have been a week later one morning, as I leaned out of one of
the office windows to knock my pipe clean, I heard a low laughing and
murmuring on the side porch, and glancing carelessly in that direction,
what should I see but Mynie twisting the lapel of a young man's coat;
his arm was around her waist. It occurred to me that he was pretty
well dressed for any beau she'd be likely to have, and as he turned his
face partly, I realised with a disgusted surprise that it was George,
my colored office-man. It would be hard to make you feel the way I did
then, and you'll probably smile when I tell you that I couldn't have
been more shocked and startled if it had been any one of you--but it's
the truth.

"You see, George was a most exceptional fellow. Everybody in--in the
city I'm telling about--knew him and respected hi