th heavy eyes out upon the quiet street, where
the rolling of the slow wheels over the fallen leaves was the only sound
that disturbed the silence. After ten bitter years the city was still
bound by the terrible lethargy which had immediately succeeded the war;
and on Church Hill it seemed almost as if we had been forgotten like the
breastworks and the battle-fields in the march of progress. The grip of
poverty, which was fiercer than the grip of armies, still held us, and
the few stately houses showed tenantless and abandoned in the midst of
their ruined gardens. Sometimes I saw an old negress in a coloured
turban come out upon one of the long porches and stare after us, her
pipe in her mouth and her hollowed palm screening her eyes; and once a
noisy group of young mulattoes emerged from an alley and followed us
curiously for a few blocks along the sidewalk.

Withdrawing my gaze from the window, I looked enviously at Mrs. Boxley,
who snored gently in her corner. Then for the second time sleep
overpowered me, and in spite of my struggles, I sank again on Mrs.
Kidd's bosom.

"Thar, now, don't think of disturbin' him, Mrs. Starr. He ain't the
least bit in my way. I can look right over his head," I heard murmured
over me as I slid blissfully into unconsciousness.

What happened after this I was never able to remember, for when I came
clearly awake again, we had reached our door, and my mother was shaking
me in the effort to make me stand on my feet.

"He's gone and slept through the whole thing," she remarked irritably to
President, while I stumbled after them across the pavement, with the
fringed ends of my blanket shawl rustling the leaves.

"He's too little. You might have let me go, ma," replied President, as
he dragged me, sleepy eyes, ruffled flaxen hair, and trailing shawl over
the doorstep.

"An' you're too big," retorted my mother, removing the long black pins
from her veil, and holding them in her mouth while she carefully
smoothed and folded the lengths of crape. "You could never have squeezed
in between us, an' as it was Mrs. Kidd almost overlaid Benjy. But you
didn't miss much," she hastened to assure him, "I declar' I thought at
one time we'd never get on it all went so slowly."

Having placed her bonnet and veil in the tall white bandbox upon the
table, she hurried off to prepare our dinner, while President urged me
in an undertone to "sham sick" that afternoon so that he wouldn't have
to take me out