t his letters are being
detained for some reason by 'Beast' Butler."

Jeanne made no reply. She had ceased for some time saying anything when
her aunt launched forth in a tirade against the Yankees. She was as
staunch a patriot as ever, but, without words, it had been borne in
upon her mind that her sentiments were unwelcome to her uncle and aunt,
and that it would be better for her not to give utterance to them.

"Where is Snowball?" asked Madame Vance presently. "I wish to take you for
a drive, and you are not dressed. That darky gets more shiftless every
day. Where is she?"

"Hyar I is, missus." Snowball started up from behind a huge brocaded chair
so quickly that she overturned a low table upon which stood a ewer that
had contained orangeade. A crash followed, and the culprit stood looking
at the fragments of the pitcher with consternation written over her face.

"Come here," and Madame's tone was so stern that Jeanne looked at her
startled. "Forty lashes you shall have for this."

"Please'm, missus, lemme off dis time. Clar ter goodness I didn't go ter
do it."

"Please, please," said Jeanne tearfully. She had heard the sound of
whippings once or twice, but her aunt had always taken her away from the
sound immediately, and her soul sickened at the thought of them. "I could
not bear to have Snowball whipped, Cherie."

"She must be punished," said the lady harshly. "Such carelessness cannot
be tolerated for a moment."

"But isn't there some other way?" cried Jeanne. "Do, do, dear Cherie, use
some other way of punishment."

"Jeanne, I beg you to say no more. Am I not capable of administering
the affairs of my own household? I want no Yankee notions down here.
I understand what she needs."

Jeanne did not dare to reply. She had never before seen her aunt angry
although she knew that the blacks were very much afraid of her. Snowball
was taken down into the yard, and soon Jeanne heard the most fearful
screams as if a human being was suffering the utmost that a mortal could
endure of agony.

She could not bear the cries. She ran down the stairs and out into the
yard where she beheld the girl stretched upon the ground on her face, her
feet tied to a stake, her hands held by a black man, her back uncovered
from her head to her heels. Her aunt was standing by directing a burly
negro in his task of applying the lash.

The girl's back was covered with blood. Every stroke of the instrument
of torture tore up the f