the face in the betrayals of
the sculpture of fifteen years.

"Nehemiah Yerby!" she exclaimed. "I would hev knowed ye in the happy
land o' Canaan."

"Let's pray we may all meet thar, Sister Sudley," he responded. "Let's
pray that the good time may find none of us unprofitable servants."

Mrs. Sudley experienced a sudden recoil. Not that she did not echo his
wish, but somehow his manner savored of an exclusive arrogation of piety
and a suggestion of reproach.

"That's my prayer," she retorted, aggressively. "Day an' night, that's
my prayer."

"Yes'm, fur us an' our households, Sister Sudley--we mus' think o' them
c'mitted ter our charge."

She strove to fling off the sense of guilt that oppressed her, the
mental attitude of arraignment. He was a young man when he journeyed
away in that snowy dawn. She did not know what changes had come in his
experience. Perchance his effervescent piety was only a habit of speech,
and had no significance as far as she was concerned. The suspicion,
however, tamed her in some sort. She attempted no retort. With a
mechanical, reluctant smile, ill adjusted to her sorrow-lined face, she
made an effort to assume that the greeting had been but the conventional
phrasings of the day. "Kem in, kem in, Nehemiah; Tyler will be glad
ter see ye, an' I reckon ye will be powerful interested ter view how
Lee-yander hev growed an' prospered."

She felt as if she were in some terrible dream as she beheld him slowly
wag his head from side to side. He had followed her into the large main
room of the cabin, and had laid his saddle-bags down by the side of the
chair in which he had seated himself, his elbows on his knees, his hands
held out to the flickering blaze in the deep chimney-place, his eyes
significantly narrowing as he gazed upon it.

"Naw, Sister Sudley," he wagged his head more mournfully still. "I kin
but grieve ter hear how my nevy Lee-yander hev 'prospered,' ez ye call
it, an' I be s'prised ye should gin it such a name. Oh-h-h, Sister
Sudley!" in prolonged and dreary vocative, "I 'lowed ye war a
godly woman. I knowed yer name 'mongst the church-goers an' the
church-members." A faint flush sprang into her delicate faded cheek;
a halo encircled this repute of sanctity; she felt with quivering
premonition that it was about to be urged as a testimony against her.
"Elsewise I wouldn't hev gin my cornsent ter hev lef the leetle lam',
Lee-yander, in yer fold. Precious, precious leetle lam'!"