the peach blossoms in the
jar behind my chair--not me."

The servants were none the less enthusiastic. Bundy screwed up his
toad eyes and expressed the opinion that it was "de 'spress image,"
and fat old Aunt Dinah, who had stumbled up the garret stairs from the
kitchen, the first time in years--her quarters being on the ground
floor of one of the cabins--put on her spectacles, and lifting up her
hands, exclaimed in a camp-meeting voice:

"De Lawd wouldn't know t'other from which if both on ye went to heaben
dis minute! Dat's you, sho' nuff, young mist'ess."

Only one thing troubled the young painter: What would the Judge say
when he returned in the morning? What alterations would he insist
upon? He had been compelled so many times to ruin a successful
picture, just to please the taste of the inexperienced, that he
trembled lest this, the best work of his brush, should share their
fate. Should the Judge disapprove Olivia's heart would well nigh be
broken, for she loved the picture as much as he did himself.

* * * * *

The night before Judge Colton's return the two sat out on the porch in
the moonlight. The air was soft and full of the coming summer.
Fire-flies darted about; the croaking of tree-toads could be heard.
From the quarters of the negroes came the refrain of an old song:

"Corn top's ripe and de meadow's in de bloom,
Weep no mo' me lady."

"I feel as if I had been dreaming and had just waked up," sighed
Olivia. "Is it all over?"

"Yes, I can't make it any better," he answered in a positive tone, his
thoughts on his picture.

"Must you go away after you finish Phil's?" Her mind was not on the
portrait.

"Yes, unless the Judge wants his own painted. I wish he would. I'd
love to stay with you--you've been so kind to me. Nobody has ever been
so good."

"And you've been very kind to me," Olivia sighed. "Oh, so kind!"

"And just think how beautiful it is here," he rejoined; "and the
wonderful weather; and the lovely life we have led. You ought to be
very contented in so beautiful a home, with everybody so good to you."

"It's all been very, very happy, hasn't it?" She had not listened, nor
had she answered him. It was the refrain of the old song that filled
her ears.

"Yes, the happiest of my life. If you'd been my own sister you
couldn't have been lovelier to me."

"Where shall you go?" She was not looking at him. Her eyes were fixed
on the