se you
may help. But perhaps you wouldn't like it."

"I am sure I should. And I don't think I am going to get well very
soon----"

Mary was solicitous. "Why not?"

"I don't want to get well. I want to stay here. I think this place
is--heavenly."

Mary laughed. "It is just a plain farmhouse. If you want the show places
you should go to Huntersfield and King's Crest----"

"I want just this. Do you know I am almost afraid to go to sleep for
fear I shall wake up and find it a--dream----"

A little later, she asked, "Are those apples in the orchard ripe?"

"Yes."

"May I have one?"

"The doctor may not want you to have it," said her anxious nurse.

"Just to hold in my hand," begged Madge.

So Mary picked a golden apple, and when the doctor came after dark, he
found the room in all the dimness of shaded lamplight, and the golden
girl asleep with that golden globe in her hand.

Up-stairs the mulatto girl, Daisy, was putting Fiddle-dee-dee to sleep.

"You be good, and Daisy gwine tell you a story."

Fiddle liked songs better. "Sing 'Jack-Sam bye.'"

Daisy, without her corsets and in disreputable slippers, settled herself
to an hour of ease. She had the negro's love of the white child, and a
sensuous appreciation of the pleasant twilight, the bedtime song, the
rhythm of the rocking-chair.

"Well, you lissen," she said, and rocked in time to the tune.

Bye, oh, bye, little Jack-Sam, bye.
Bye, oh, bye, my baby,
When you wake, you shall have a cake--
And all the pretty little horses--

Her voice was low and pleasant, with queer, quavering minor cadences.
But Fiddle-dee-dee was not sleepy.

"'Tory," she begged, when the song was ended.

So Daisy told the story of the three bears. Fiddle was too young to
fully comprehend, but she liked the sound of Daisy's voice at the
climaxes, "Who's been sittin' in _my_ chair?" and "Who's been sleepin'
in _my_ bed?" and "Who's been eatin' _my_ soup?" Daisy was dramatic or
nothing, and she entered into the spirit of her tale. It was such an
exciting performance altogether that Fiddle was wider awake than ever
when the story was finished.

"Ain' you evah gwine shut yo' eyes?"

"Daisy, sing," said Fiddle.

"I'se sung twel my th'oat's dry," said Daisy. And just then Mary came
in. "Isn't she asleep, Daisy?--I'll take her. Bannister's John is
down-stairs and wants to see you."

"Well, I ain' wantin' to see him," Daisy tossed her head; "you jus' take
Miss