rly morning ones in
the old market, and Virginia knew that she should hear Docia's story
repeated again for the benefit of the curious or sympathetic listeners
that would soon gather about her mother. Mrs. Pendleton's marketing,
unlike the hurried and irresponsible sort of to-day, was an affair of
time and ceremony. Among the greetings and the condolences from other
marketers there would ensue lengthy conversations with the vendors of
poultry, of fish, or of vegetables. Every vegetable must be carefully
selected by her own hands and laid aside into her special basket, which
was in the anxious charge of a small coloured urchin. While she felt the
plump breasts of Mr. Dewlap's chickens, she would inquire with
flattering condescension after the members of Mr. Dewlap's family. Not
only did she remember each one of them by name, but she never forgot
either the dates of their birthdays or the number of turkeys Mrs. Dewlap
had raised in a season. If marketing is ever to be elevated from an
occupation to an art, it will be by a return to Mrs. Pendleton's method.

"Mother, please buy some strawberries," begged Virginia.

"Darling, you know we never buy fruit, or desserts. Somebody will
certainly send us something. I saw Mrs. Carrington whipping syllabub on
her back porch as we passed."

"But they're only five cents a basket."

"Well, put a basket with my marketing, Mr. Dewlap. Yes, I'll take that
white pullet if you're sure that she is plumper than the red one."

She moved on a step or two, while the white pullet was handed over by
its feet to the small coloured urchin and to destruction. If Mrs.
Pendleton had ever reflected on the tragic fate of pullets, she would
probably have concluded that it was "best" for them to be fried and
eaten, or Providence, whose merciful wisdom she never questioned, would
not have permitted it. So, in the old days, she had known where the
slave market stood, without realizing in the least that men and women
were sold there. "Poor things, it does seem dreadful, but I suppose it
is better for them to have a change sometimes," she would doubtless have
reasoned had the horror of the custom ever occurred to her--for her
heart was so sensitive to pain that she could exist at all only by
inventing a world of exquisite fiction around her.

"Aren't you nearly through, mother?" pleaded Virginia at last. "The sun
will be so hot going home that it will make your head worse."

Mrs. Pendleton, who was spl