And I know jest egsactly ez much about his real self--whut
he thinks and whut he does behind my back--ez he wants me to know, no
more and no less. I judge it's much the same way with your Aunt Sharley,
and with all the rest of their race too. We understand how to live with
'em, but that ain't sayin' we understand how they live."

He looked steadfastly at his late ward.

"Honey, when you come to cast up the account you do owe a lot to that
old nigger woman, don't you?--you and your sister both. Mebbe you owe
even more than you think you do. There ain't many left like her in this
new generation of darkies that's growed up--she belongs to a species
that's mighty nigh extinct, ez you might say. Us Southern people are
powerfully given, some of us, to tellin' whut we've done fur the black
race--and we have done a lot, I'll admit--but sometimes I think we're
prone to furgit some of the things they've done fur us. Hold on, honey,"
he added hastily, seeing that she was about to speak in her own defence.
"I ain't takin' issue with you aginst you nor yit aginst the young man
you're fixin' to marry. After all, you've got your own lives to live. I
was jest sort of studyin' out loud--not offerin' an argument in
opposition."

Still looking straight at her he asked a question:

"Tell me one thing, Emmy Lou, jest to satisfy my curiosity and before we
go any further with this here bothersome affair that's makin' you
unhappy. It seems like to me I heared somewheres that you first met this
young man of yours whilst you and little Mildred were off at Knollwood
Seminary finishin' your educations. Is that so or ain't it?"

"Yes, sir, that's true," she answered. "You see, when we first went to
Knollwood, Harvey had just been sent South to take a place in the office
of the trolley road at Knollwood.

"His people were interested in the line; he was assistant to the general
manager then. I met him there. And he--he was interested in me, I
suppose, and afterward, when he had worked his way up and had been
promoted to the superintendency, his company bought our line in, too,
and he induced them to transfer him here--I mean to say he was
transferred here. So that's how it all happened."

"I see," he said musingly. "You met him down there and he got
interested--'interested' was the word you used, wasn't it, honey?--and
then after a spell when you had left there he followed you here--or
rather it jest so happened by a coincidence that he was s