blue eyes exactly like
yours. Did you ever see a blue-eyed dog? He's a collie. But your hair
stands always on end and it's the colour of straw."

"It growed that way," I returned. "You can't get it to be flat. Ma has
tried."

"I bet I could," she rejoined, and caught at the old woman's hand. "This
is my mammy an' her name is Euphronasia, an' she's got blue eyes an'
golden hair," she cried, beginning to dance up and down in her red
shoes.

"Gawd erlive, lamb, I'se ez black ez a crow's foot," protested the old
woman, at which the dance of the red shoes changed into a stamp of
anger.

"You aren't!--You aren't! You've got blue eyes an' golden hair!"
screamed the child. "I won't let you say you haven't,--I won't let
anybody say you haven't!"

It took a few minutes to pacify her, during which the old negress
perjured herself to the extent of declaring on her word of honour that
she _had_ blue eyes and golden hair; and when the temper of her "lamb"
was appeased, we turned the corner, approached the front of the house,
and ascended the bright bow of steps. As we entered the wide hall, my
heart thumped so violently that I hurriedly buttoned my coat lest the
little girl should hear the sound and turn indignantly to accuse, me of
disturbing the peace. Then as the front door closed softly behind us, I
stood blinking nervously in the dim green light which entered through
the row of columns at the rear, beyond which I saw the curving stairway
and the two miniature yew trees at its foot. There was a strange musty
smell about the house--a smell that brings to me now, when I find it in
old and unlighted buildings, the memory of the high ceiling, the shining
floor over which I moved so cautiously, and the long melancholy rows of
moth-eaten stags' heads upon the wall.

A door at the far end was half open, and inside the room there were two
ladies--one of them very little and old and shrivelled, and the other a
pretty, brown-haired, pliant creature, whom I recognised instantly as
our visitor of that stormy October evening more than two years ago. She
was reading aloud when we entered, in a voice which sounded so soft and
pious that I wondered if I ought to fold my hands and bow my head as I
had been taught to do in the infant Sunday-school.

"Be careful not to mush your words, Sarah; the habit is growing upon
you," remarked the elder lady in a sharp, imperative tone.

"Shall I read it over, mother? I will try to speak more distin