.

"What's your name, my good fellow?" he asked of the black.

"Me Diogenes, massa, but de folks call me `Dio'."

"Well, jump in, Dio, and tell me the way I am to drive."

"Straight on den, Massa," said Dio, climbing in at the hinder part of
the waggon, "den turn to de right, and den to de lef', and we are at
Massa Bracher's."

My father drove on as fast as the horses could go, for although the
weather was tolerably warm, my teeth were chattering with cold and
fright, and he was anxious, wet as we were, not to expose my mother and
me to the night air. By following Dio's directions, in less than ten
minutes we reached a house of more pretensions than any we had yet seen.
It was of one story, and raised on a sort of platform above the ground
with a broad veranda in front. Behind it was a kitchen-garden, and
plantations of tobacco, and fields of corn on either side. Dio, jumping
out, ran to the horses' heads, and advised my mother to go first, taking
me with her, and to introduce herself to Mammy Coe.

"Yes, go, Kathleen," said my father, "the good woman will certainly not
turn us away, although from what Dio says, she may not receive us very
courteously."

The door stood open; as we ascended the wooden steps, two huge
blood-hounds rushed out, barking furiously, but Dio's voice kept them
from molesting us. The noise they made served to summon "Mammy Coe," a
brown lady of mature age, a degree or two removed from a negress,
dressed, as I thought, in very gay colours, with a handkerchief of
bright hue bound round her head, forming a sort of turban.

"Who you strangers, whar you come from?" she asked in an authoritative
tone, as if accustomed to command.

My mother, in a few words, explained what had happened. "We should be
thankful to you to allow us to have our clothes dried," she added.

"Yas, strangers, me will gib you dat permission," answered Mammy Coe;
"come 'long dis way. Your man too, him want change him clo'," she said,
looking out and perceiving my father standing on the steps, still
dripping wet. "Dio," she shouted, "take de horses round to de stable
and bring in de strangers' tings."

Dio promptly obeyed, glad, I am very sure, that his kind intentions had
thus far been successful.

"Come 'long, young woman, and bring de boy. You shall hab supper
afterwards, den go to bed, you all right to-morrow."

She led the way to a bed-room on one side of the entrance-hall, where my
mother quickly strip