triumph.

"Whoever said you were? Show me the person."

"It wa'nt a person. It was a little girl."

"A little girl? You mean the half-drowned brat I wrapped up in yo'
grandma's old blanket shawl I set the muffin dough under? To think of my
sendin' yo' po' tired pa splashin' out with 'em into the rain. So she
called you common?"

But the sound of a carriage turning the corner fell on my ears, and
running hastily into the sitting-room, I opened the door and looked out
eagerly for signs of the approaching funeral.

A bright morning had followed the storm, and the burnished leaves, so
restless the day before, lay now wet and still under the sunshine. I had
stepped joyously over the threshold, to the sunken brick pavement, when
my mother, moved by a sudden anxiety for my health, called me back, and
in spite of my protestations, wrapped me in a grey blanket shawl, which
she fastened at my throat with the enormous safety-pin she had taken
from her own waist. Much embarrassed by this garment, which dragged
after me as I walked, I followed her sullenly out of the house and as
far as our neighbour's doorstep, where I was ordered to sit down and
wait until the service was over. As the stir of her crape passed into
the little hall, I seated myself obediently on the single step which led
straight from the street, and made faces, during the long wait, at the
merry driver of the hearse--a decrepit negro of ancient days, who
grinned provokingly at the figure I cut in my blanket shawl.

"Hi! honey, is you got on swaddlin' close er a windin' sheet?" he
enquired. "I'se a-gittin' near bline en I cyarn mek out."

"You jest wait till I'm bigger an' I'll show you," was my peaceable
rejoinder.

"Wat's dat you gwine sho' me, boy? I reckon I'se done seed mo' curus
things den you in my lifetime."

I looked up defiantly. Between the aristocratic, if fallen, negro and
myself there was all the instinctive antagonism that existed in the
Virginia of that period between the "quality" and the "poor white
trash."

"If you don't lemme alone you'll see mo'n you wanter."

"Whew! I reckon you gwine tu'n out sump'im' moughty outlandish, boy.
I'se a-lookin' wid all my eyes an I cyarn see nuttin' at all."

"Wait till I'm bigger an' you'll see it," I answered.

"I'se sho'ly gwine ter wait, caze ef'n hits mo' curus den you is en dat
ar windin' sheet, hit's a sight dat I'se erbleeged ter lay eyes on.
Wat's yo' name, suh?" he enquired, with a mocki