nswered shortly:

"Georgia, ma'am," and was silent.

The girl tried again.

"Georgia is a large State,"--tentatively.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Are you going back there when you finish?"

"I don't know."

"I think you ought to--and work for your people."

"Yes, ma'am."

She stopped, puzzled, and looked about. The old horse jogged lazily on,
and Bles switched him unavailingly. Somehow she had missed the way
today. The Veil hung thick, sombre, impenetrable. Well, she had done her
duty, and slowly she nestled back and watched the far-off green and
golden radiance of the cotton.

"Bles," she said impulsively, "shall I tell you of the Golden Fleece?"

He glanced at her again.

"Yes'm, please," he said.

She settled herself almost luxuriously, and began the story of Jason and
the Argonauts.

The boy remained silent. And when she had finished, he still sat silent,
elbow on knee, absently flicking the jogging horse and staring ahead at
the horizon. She looked at him doubtfully with some disappointment that
his hearing had apparently shared so little of the joy of her telling;
and, too, there was mingled a vague sense of having lowered herself to
too familiar fellowship with this--this boy. She straightened herself
instinctively and thought of some remark that would restore proper
relations. She had not found it before he said, slowly:

"All yon is Jason's."

"What?" she asked, puzzled.

He pointed with one sweep of his long arm to the quivering mass of
green-gold foliage that swept from swamp to horizon.

"All yon golden fleece is Jason's now," he repeated.

"I thought it was--Cresswell's," she said.

"That's what I mean."

She suddenly understood that the story had sunk deeply.

"I am glad to hear you say that," she said methodically, "for Jason was
a brave adventurer--"

"I thought he was a thief."

"Oh, well--those were other times."

"The Cresswells are thieves now."

Miss Taylor answered sharply.

"Bles, I am ashamed to hear you talk so of your neighbors simply because
they are white."

But Bles continued.

"This is the Black Sea," he said, pointing to the dull cabins that
crouched here and there upon the earth, with the dark twinkling of their
black folk darting out to see the strangers ride by.

Despite herself Miss Taylor caught the allegory and half whispered, "Lo!
the King himself!" as a black man almost rose from the tangled earth at
their side. He was tall and thin and sombre-hued, w